Quote:
Originally Posted by yoav
there is some confusion in your interpretation of how i believe today's world should handle copyrights and what i foresee and hope to see in the future. i won't discuss my vision of the future in this post, although would be happy to later on. you've also grossly exaggerated and incorrectly extrapolated my views. furthermore i'm not trying to convince anyone of anything, i'm simply voicing my opinion. stop demonizing me for having differing views than you.
it's one thing to question what my beliefs may imply, but for you to say that i believe your incorrect analysis of the implications without giving me a chance to better explain myself isn't right.
i believe that a digital copy of a work, produced by someone other than the artist for personal use, or to introduce someone to said work does not have monetary value(a fact of capitalism). i believe sharing a digital music file over a p2p network is the same as:
- recording something off the radio onto cassette tape
[Music cannot be played on the radio without an artist's consent, or the copyright holder's consent, therefore this example is void. In one instance, art can exist beyond the realm of that method of theft (radio) if the artist wishes it to do so. In the other, art cannot exist beyond the realm of that particular method of theft (digital copies).]
- buying a movie/album/painting and showing it to your friends in your house, or displaying it in your driveway, etc.
[Except without the buying part. Fail. Also, that example is not analogous until you include the "...and give them all exact copies of that movie/album/painting. And then that would be wrong.]
- purchasing a piece of designer furniture, and crafting your own duplicate for your own personal use and not restricting a friend of yours from seeing the piece of furniture and crafting their own duplicate.
[First of all, notice the same discrepancy? It's not the same, because there is no money changing hands. Secondly, if you want me to say that exactly replicating designer furniture is theft as well, you've got it.]
- learning to play a song on guitar that someone else wrote and playing it for your friends' or own personal pleasure
[If you can't see the difference between that and digital copies of art, you are a fucking idiot.]
i believe the above statements do not describe theft, i believe it's possible to take the above statements to be theft if you were to profit off said duplication, or if you intend to thwart the intent of the artist. where you and i seem to differ on this is i believe that it's not the digital copy that has value, it is the artist's intent that holds value. (i think unless i've misunderstood your stance, that you believe both have value to the artist regardless of whether or not the 'pirate' intends or succeeds to profit or limit profit of the artist by their actions)
i agree with you that the artist's intent is key and should be respected, and believe the artist has the right to safeguard their intent. however i believe that in respect of true fair use, an artist that releases an album in today's culture, behavior, and technology that they intend to have it digitally copied by the listener for their personal use and to show to their friends. for an artist to release their work and not expect anyone to share it, or copy a cd to their ipod so they can listen while they jog, and further expect the listener only to listen in complete seclusion so no one overhears a part of the tune is ridiculous. the out of touch artists who believe they should have such control can't have their cake and eat it too, just like the unfortunate podcasters who signed up for podshow can't belong to podshow and retain control of their content. responsibility cannot fall solely on the consumer.
it's because of this conflict that i believe an artist that doesn't intend for their work to be listened to without their explicit consent down to the individual listener does not release recordings to the public, but instead performs live. 'piracy' has been around for decades before the internet, and so artists releasing their work through such avenues came after piracy and those works are released into that pre-existing environment.
it's because of this, perhaps in some rare cases unintentional, intent that the term 'pirate' does not apply to me. i'm not a thief either as you cannot steal something which has no value, ie: a digital copy. if you understand capitalism, then you can only agree that a digital copy has no monetary value as i explained previously in this thread, nor should it, as it conflicts with true fair use, as clarified above.
i don't hate music, i don't hinder music, i support and participate in the arts, i don't circumvent drm(although i think it's proven to be impractical and cripple true fair use and in it's current form should be, has been, and is being boycotted). |
1) No, you don't get amnesty because you're dressing up thievery as a "belief". How about you don't get pissed at me because my "belief" is that you're a thief, and I must act accordingly? And don't try to pretend that I have not read what you have said previously, or that you have not told me what you think, therefore I am prejudging you. I obviously have had a spot-on grasp of what your beliefs are before this point, and they are justifications for theft.
2) It is not possible to release content without digital copies being made of it, regardless of the medium. You have therefore set up a trap wherein artists cannot make art without losing their right of control.
3) Digital copies do have value; they have as much value as the art itself does. In the same way that many people would not pay the same amount for a blank book vs. a book written by JK Rowling, many people would not pay the same for a blank MP3 as they would a song in MP3 form. Art has value, therefore digital copies of art have value.
4) Capitalism defines value through supply and demand. There is obviously a demand for art, therefore it has value. Your whole basis around assigning zero value to digital copies is that it costs nothing to reproduce; this is an incongruous with capitalism's method of determining value. Something that is physical and has a cost of production may still have zero value. If I carve wood into the most hideous image possible and no one wants to buy it, it has no value, though it had cost of production. Cost of production is not the absolute method of determining value.
5) By saying that it would be theft to profit off of copyrighted material, you are admitting that copyrights exist.
6) Part of the right of a copyright holder is to have control over
how the content is distributed, and to whom. They are not obliged to give you their content, even if it costs them nothing to do so. An example of why this is so: what if I were to host KATG shows on my own dollar, but with all references to the show name and website removed, meanwhile dropping in my own theme song, effectively renaming the show? If I have no ads on my website for the renamed show, I do not profit. Utilized by heinous enough people (perhaps a marketing whiz or two), and artists lose money through lost viewers, though the replicator does not profit.
7) Theft is taking someone else's property without their consent. It does not matter if what is taken has value. If profiting off of someone else's art is wrong, that means art has ownership. If something is owned and it is taken without the owner's consent, it has been stolen.
8) By saying artists should not be able to release art to the public without having it stolen from them, you are kicking sustainability right out from underneath artists. The modern video game market would be decimated, as video game creators would have to be limited to producing arcade games. Authors would have to have their own libraries full, wherein one would go to read their book, and one would not be able to leave without first being searched for all copies of their work. You are making art unprofitable no matter how you dress it up, and that, in a capitalist society, is intensely damaging to the creation of art.
9) You continue to try to confuse the issue by bringing up unreasonable elements of copyright law again. Stop being shady. I've stated for the last 17 pages now that that's not what I'm talking about. Shut that shit up.
10) Even if the analogies to stealing digital copies of art were accurate, the impacts of all those examples is nowhere near that of pirating. Replicating designer furniture is inherently limiting, and playing a popular song on one's own instruments is commonly limited in effect on the market. Those are permitted because of their scope. But if someone opens a factory and starts mass producing an exact replica of furniture that is copyrighted, they should (and would) be shut down. If someone records someone's else's song and starts distributing digital copies and physical copies of it and their efforts are effective, they should (and would) be shut down. Every example you mentioned is only tolerated because of the small scale, which is something digitally copying art does not share.