Is Copyright Infringement Morally Equivalent to Stealing?

[Pengwuino]

I don't see how someone can call it a crime.

Is anyone calling it a crime?

Why is a gift only justified by familiarity? Do you want to shut down charities as well?

Your GIVING to a charity, not sharing. You don't both claim ownership of a $5 bill. You don't counterfeit money and give it to charity.

 

[Smurf]

Is anyone calling it a crime?

Yeah, actually, a lot of people are. Almost every country in the world's government actually. And you're supporting them by calling it immoral.

Your GIVING to a charity, not sharing. You don't both claim ownership of a $5 bill. You don't counterfeit money and give it to charity.

Whatever, the point is why is familiarity necessary to share with someone?

 

[Pengwuino]

Yeah, actually, a lot of people are. Almost every country in the world's government actually. And you're supporting them by calling it immoral.

Getting drunk is considered by some to be immoral. Are you willing to attack those people too?

Whatever, the point is why is familiarity necessary to share with someone?

Because it no longer fits the idea of "sharing". You share with your neighbor, you share with your friend. You don't "share" with 80 million domain names and IP addresses. The REAL point here is if can you actually look at yourself in the mirror and say "i should be able to listen to any cd and watch any movie or use any piece of software or play any game simply because some unknown person possibly thousands of miles away put up a few bucks for it".

 

[Smurf]

Getting drunk is considered by some to be immoral. Are you willing to attack those people too?

That's exactly the point. No. I choose not the drink, but I don't force that on other people. You can drink if you want, so long as doing so doesn't endanger other people. I just might not want to hang around you. I'm not trying to force eveyone to start file-sharing.

Because it no longer fits the idea of "sharing". You share with your neighbor, you share with your friend. You don't "share" with 80 million domain names and IP addresses. The REAL point here is if can you actually look at yourself in the mirror and say "i should be able to listen to any cd and watch any movie or use any piece of software or play any game simply because some unknown person possibly thousands of miles away put up a few bucks for it".

Here, I'll go do it now. Ok, done. I don't see a reason why I shouldn't be able to. I support companies, bands and people who I want to support, in many ways. Sometimes I even buy retail CDs.

 

[Pengwuino]

How does that support them though? You get their music, they don't receive anything in return. One single person could buy a cd, the record company could make $15. He could then share it with a million people. How is this supporting the company and bands?

 

[Smurf]

How does that support them though? You get their music, they don't receive anything in return. One single person could buy a cd, the record company could make $15. He could then share it with a million people. How is this supporting the company and bands?

It doesn't. And it doesn't have to. If I like a band I might (rarely - and then it's only the small bands) buy a cd of theirs, but I'll go to their concerts if they come to town, and more often than not I'll buy sheet music or chord charts for their songs from them.

I have a pair of shorts made purely out of patches with logos of bands (and other groups that can only be described as 'stuff') that I like and want to support.

Most of the bands I really like arn't available on any file sharing networks, or are very difficult to get. I upload songs of these bands all the time, this helps them more than it hurts them too, because then when they go to another town there will be people there who have actually heard of them and they'll go to their shows.

I'm not hurting them at all, I'm not even taking away 'potential profit' because I'm sure as hell not going to buy music from a band that I don't even know if I'll like or not.
Like I said; I support them, in many ways.

 

[Pengwuino]

Buying CD's negates the threads purpose. Going to their concerts also does not count because it is a disconnect from the thread.

Putting patches of logos on your shorts does not 'put food on the table' for them.

Your also only talking about no-name bands. Now, although there probably the better bands, this is not a thread on "feeling right about downloading music from groups that suck compared to good bands". If your bands were popular and near-household names, you sound like you would have a different opinion. Unfortunately, this new opinion would be irrelevant as is the idea that its good because its a no-name band. The entire purpose is to show whether file-sharing as a whole, is immoral or not on the scales that its done today.

 

[Smurf]

The entire purpose is to show whether file-sharing as a whole, is immoral or not on the scales that its done today.

*sigh* Ok. Then why is it?

 

[loseyourname]

Well, I guess we're just proving here how complicated matters of ethics really are. In many cases, file-sharing can almost certainly be considered immoral. In many other cases, it probably cannot be. In some cases, it is very ambiguous. For instance:

My roommate downloaded Hotel Rwanda. She had seen it in theaters, but I had not. Neither of us is going to buy the DVD. Whoever made this movie did receive money from her, but not from me. They only received money from her once, while she saw the movie twice. What is the moral status of each of our acts? I'd say this one is pretty ambiguous.

My ex-girlfriend almost never buys CDs anymore. She probably owns upwards of 500 albums that she never paid for and never will. She does go to concerts to see these bands, and she has discovered new bands this way, but even so, she has pirated hundreds of albums without paying. I'd say this is clearly unethical.

I downloaded a DVD rip of Revenge of the Sith and have watched it many times. However, I also saw it several times in theaters and will buy the DVD when it is released. I just don't want to wait. I'd say this one is fine.

On another note, what about this situation:

I used to own hundreds of CDs that I bought in stores. Over the years, however, I have copied all of them to burned CDs and sold the originals back to record stores. Is there anything unethical about doing this? What about all of the copies I have made for friends, my little sisters, and my mother?

 

[Pengwuino]

*sigh* Ok. Then why is it?

Well if we look at loseyourname's examples, we can see why its immoral in my mind in a majority of cases.

Lets set up loseyournames examples as numbers. The hotel rwanda is case #1, next is #2 with the ex-girlfriend, revenge of the sith is #3, and the final one is #4.

#1, ambiguous as this is somewhat equivalent to having a friend over to watch a movie.

#2, as per my argument, is VERY unethical. You are not supporting anyone and you getting incredible entertainment for none of your own money. THIS case is where i see huge immoral value. THIS is also the case i see with a huge majority of my friends and family members. I've seen cd-case after cd-case full of copied cds. Fully enjoyed, not a cent to the maker.

#3, ambiguous but dealing with moral relativism as ill explain later

#4, this is counterfeiting, plain and simple. Your actually profiting while keeping 100% of your entertainment value. Giving to your family is another problem dealing with moral relativism.

As for the idea of moral relativism, we're really showing signs of "well, i just did it for a few friends, its not wrong" or "it was small so its not really wrong". Is stealing just a little money ok? Is going into a store and stealing the cheaper tv ok? To me, when it comes to right vs wrong, it doesn't matter on what kind of scale its done. I would hope that a lot of people would agree with me here...

Plus the reality of file-sharing is that a LOT of people are garnering tens of thousands of dollars worth of software for free. I use to be rather experienced in the real world of "file-sharing" when things were still done on small scales in IRC channels and such. Ask most people on the scene back then and there was no question that it was not only illegal, but wrong as well. There were pieces of software for download that costs upwards of $10,000 in real life. It was a digital black market, plain and simple and we all knew it. I personally never downloaded anything over $200 because to me, at some point, it was just crossing a line to me. But meh... i dunno... other people can think its OK i suppose.

 

[Smurf]

Huh...

Ok, now that we've all heard each other viewpoints. Why don't we address the actualy question, which is: How do we address file-sharing and how should it be controlled if at all?

 

[Pengwuino]

That wasnt the question at all. Its if its moral or not.

People should be allowed to trade all they want... really hard to justify otherwise because its simply a mode of transportation.

 

[Smurf]

That wasnt the question at all. Its if its moral or not.

That's the same question. I'm just putting it into a context. What should a moral society do about it?

 

[Pengwuino]

A moral society would shut it down. A free society would leave it open lol

 

[loseyourname]

#4, this is counterfeiting, plain and simple. Your actually profiting while keeping 100% of your entertainment value. Giving to your family is another problem dealing with moral relativism.

Sorry for not responding to this until now. I want to take a deeper look at this case study. Forget about making copies for my little sisters and let us focus on copying CDs I had already bought and selling back the originals.

We have to take into consideration everything surrounding the case; put it into perspective, so to speak. We'll simplify things for the sake of illustration as well. First, we'll say that I originally spent $15 per CD, which is probably pretty close to accurate. When I sold them back, I received, on average, $3 per CD. My act of selling back does not affect the record companies or the artists, as they do not have to give any money to me. It is the record store that does, so we'll consider only the consequences to them. First off, let us ask why they buy back CDs in the first place. So they can sell them again, right? We'll say, for the sake of illustration, that they sell each CD that I sell to them, on average, for $6. This gives them a net revenue from each CD they originally sold me of $18. This is more than the $15 net revenue they would have received for each CD had I never sold them back. I also bought the blank CDs from the same store, so they made a little more money that way as well.

What this means is that 1) The record companies and artists lose nothing from my act, and 2) The record stores gain from my act. Furthermore, you can't say that I've profited from this act, since my own net revenue is -$12 per CD. So what is it that makes this act immoral?

Note: I'm basing 'morality' on my own personal conception that any action is immoral only if it harms someone.

 

[Brady]

I think it's immoral because if the artist didn't create it, then I wouldn't be enjoying it. I'm willing to pay a couple bucks for something that I really want. It's not like I want every movie in the world or every song, there's a few that I really want, I go to iTunes and buy it legally.

 

[delton]

Micheal Moore said that filesharing is moral as long as people are not selling things and making money. Therefore I did not fell I had been immoral when I downloaded his documentary Fahrenheit 911. However, I respect other musicians that may not want there files to be shared or their movies to be pirated onto the internet before they come out . I think most bands, however, feel that they do very well monetarily from their bussiness, and do not mind their art and opinions to be shared. For this reason, I find file sharing to be moral in most cases.

P.S : this is a very tricky issue and I myself have had many second thoughts on my ideas.

 

[Pengwuino]

Micheal Moore said that filesharing is moral as long as people are not selling things and making money. Therefore I did not fell I had been immoral when I downloaded his documentary Fahrenheit 911.

Well this is one of the special cases. He explicitely told people that they can share it across P2P networking and such.

I think most bands, however, feel that they do very well monetarily from their bussiness, and do not mind their art and opinions to be shared. For this reason, I find file sharing to be moral in most cases.

whoa wait just a minute. It is simply your opinion that they don't mind their cd's being shared. This is like saying that Best Buy makes a lot of money and that you think they would not mind their equipment being shared, thus stealing from them would be moral.

There are an increasing number of artists putting copy protections on their cds. Sometimes they come out and say they will... sometimes they don't say but it ends up being impossible to copy them (without some hacks or go-arounds). About 4 or 5 years ago, when I use to do this stuff, coming up to a cd that didnt copy with the simplest of software was unheard of! Now I am constantly getting people asking me why they can't copy this cd or that cd or why they can't find this cd online or that cd online.

 

[Antiphon]

Filesharing is stealing. In the case of music, you are stealing the right to hear
the music in exactly the same way as if you sneak into a concert without buying
a ticket.

That right, to let you listen, belongs to the music publisher and they will let
you listen for a few dollars.

The argument that "it's not really taking something becaue they still have it"
is false. They no longer have the money you should have paid them for hearing
the song. The song itself was never for sale, only the the right to hear it. When
you buy a CD, you are not (just) buying a piece of plastic. You are buying the
right to hear the content as many times as you want. Further, just because you buy
a CD doesn't mean you can play your CD for 100,000 people. They have not
purchased the rights you have.


This filesharing is like the lilliputians piling onto gulliver. The result will be
that there will be no publishing houses to distribute music and therefore
no way for artists to get paid for their craft, and therefore a dramatic
reduction in the number of people who can make a living playing music!

Is that what you really want?

 

[delton]

Yea... I've changed my mind and I agree it's definently immoral, not to mention illegal in the US

 

[luxv66]

This filesharing is like the lilliputians piling onto gulliver. The result will be
that there will be no publishing houses to distribute music and therefore
no way for artists to get paid for their craft, and therefore a dramatic
reduction in the number of people who can make a living playing music!

Is that what you really want?

That's exactly right. No matter how much an aritst loves their craft, at the end of the day they still have to eat and pay the rent. It doesn't only affect commercial crap like Britney Spears. No matter how much passion you have, it's kind of tough to produce your music if you have to work 40 hours per week delivering pizza to pay the bills.

 

[Telos]

File-sharing art will become more immoral when there are infrastructures in place to handle the distribution of said media. When it was not possible to download music online, you weren't stealing the music as much as you were using a superior mode of accessing it. It's not illegal to listen to it when your friend is playing it, or to listen to their copy while they are not listening to it, or to listen to a complete stranger play it... these are all inferior modes accessing music without keeping. If you downloaded music and listened to it and then trashed it - poof - no real immorality (the person who made the copy in the first place, however, is another story).

Now that there are superior modes of access, modes which you have to pay for, now you are not only stealing the music but the mode of delivery as well. Double immorality on your soul!

 

[amcavoy]

Technically it is stealing, but why is it bad? Look at the people benefitting from it driving around in their Ferraris. They overcharge people for their music just to spend the money on material things that don't do them any good. Is that fair?

 

[vanesch]

So what do you guys think about file-sharings morality? Do you feel you are sharing with a hypothetical "neighbor" or do you feel your getting something you didnt pay for and it is wrong or do you think its somewhere in between?

Let's limit ourselves to entertainment material, and to the case were you only use the shared file for your personal enjoyment.
It is probably illegal, but it is not amoral at all, and it is an abuse to call it "stealing". After all, stealing is TAKING AWAY something from somebody, and that's not happening here. What is happening is that 2 things can happen:
- because you got the file for free, you're not going to pay for it, but otherwise you would. As such, you ENJOYED some fun and the "owner" of the material could have ripped you off a few bucks for that enjoyment by creating that desire in you through a publicity campaign, and now he misses that opportunity.
- you got the file for free and you enjoy it, but if you wouldn't have had it for free, you wouldn't have considered buying it in any case. In this case, the "owner" would not even have ripped you off a few bucks, so the difference between you having the file, and you not having the file, is that you had some more enjoyment and for the owner, nothing changed. The world, on average, only got slightly better.

Now the argument is that, in a capitalist system, the creation of desire and seducing the other into an act of purchase is the source of income for the creator (and "owner") of the file, and by not playing that game, you deprive that creator of a part of his income, in the case where you could be seduced to the act of purchase. Point is, capitalism itself is totally amoral, so one should not have a moral obligation to play by its rules for personal enjoyment and happiness. You could just as well say that your happiness is YOUR PERSONAL BUSINESS, and that you will give whatever you deem it worthy, in one way or another, to the creator and that he cannot deny you some PERSONAL PLEASURE if you have the technical ability to have that pleasure (by copying the file).
If the creator didn't create his work, he wouldn't have created any desire for you to enjoy his non-existing work, and you wouldn't have considered copying the non-existing file in the first place. That would not have made you unhappy, so the creator didn't cover any NEED. He created that need in the first place. So you shouldn't consider it amoral for you to find another way for yourself to satisfy the desire he created in the first place, than giving money to that creator. Nobody asked for it. He shoved it up your a$$, thinking that through a capitalist reasoning you would feel morally obliged to buy it, and you simply found a way around it. There's nothing that would go wrong with the world if singers stopped making new songs, and holliwood stopped making new movies.

 

[Oduz]

File sharing is really cool because you can try before buy. If you really like what you get, then it is not a problem to spend some money to buy the original.

 

[devil-fire]

i think stealing from a store is immoral because the store Bought it themselves, and are reselling it. when you steal it, you put them minus money and not just a lack of plus money. there was a product in their store they invested in and now have no potential to be rewarded on that investment. if i just don't buy it, as far as the store can tell, I am just poor and i don't mind that at all.
when "stealing" I am depriving someone of their investment in an item. when i download, I am just pretending to be poor.

i think the immorality of fileshareing depends on the quality of files being shared and the price. stuff like music, hollywood movies, and tv shows have a lot of vary prosperous people involved in the making and selling of the material and i just don't think they have earned their money like a construction worker or engineer works for their money. my lack of money being payed to them makes up for their lack of valuable work basically . on the other hand, there is a lot of small name people who are actually making great material and i want to support them so ill end up ordering a CD on-line. there is also a lot of good quality software that is being ripped off and on the next version the team is going to have to cut corners, if there is a next version at all. what the music and movie industry needs to do, should have done sooner and are starting to do now, is offer an on-line alternative where you can download music and movies easily at a fraction of the price and not have to put up with pornographic banners or spy ware. as for software i can't think of much... if its crapy software although marketed great and priced high, download it for free and send the development team what you think they earned

the people i hear that are having the hardest time about file sharing are those who are making dollars for every dime they pay to the people who made the original, or artists who already making huge amounts of money. there are also a lot of middle men who are making lots of money while just tagging along for the ride


for those who are saying the loss of potential profit is immoral, i ask if a library is immoral. the authors and publishers of books could look at it and say "hey! even though you bought that book, your letting everyone else read it. they should have to buy it themselves to know how my book ends!" the world has gotten along OK with librarys and i think it can get along with file sharing too.

 

[Pengwuino]

for those who are saying the loss of potential profit is immoral, i ask if a library is immoral. the authors and publishers of books could look at it and say "hey! even though you bought that book, your letting everyone else read it. they should have to buy it themselves to know how my book ends!" the world has gotten along OK with librarys and i think it can get along with file sharing too.

librarys, like rental stores, get special permission to allow people to borrow the books. Plus of course, this is a bad analogy. You're suppose to return the book and not keep it.

I don't see how this thread is still alive. Do people accidently click Value Theory and think "oh look at this, the only active topic, let's throw my stupid two cents in".

 

[Pengwuino]

Technically it is stealing, but why is it bad? Look at the people benefitting from it driving around in their Ferraris. They overcharge people for their music just to spend the money on material things that don't do them any good. Is that fair?

Actors ride in ferraris, people who make tvs, computers, soda, speakers, cards, doors, scissors, all ride in high priced cars. Would it be fair to steal a tv? You live in luxury compared to someone in a poor african nation. Should they be allowed to steal your car or your refrigerator?

 

[devil-fire]

librarys, like rental stores, get special permission to allow people to borrow the books. Plus of course, this is a bad analogy. You're suppose to return the book and not keep it.

I don't see how this thread is still alive. Do people accidently click Value Theory and think "oh look at this, the only active topic, let's throw my stupid two cents in".

the point i trying to make was that you are not stealing the material, you just no longer need to buy it. the uploader bought the material and is now making people not need to buy it to use it, the same way a library is.

as for the second piece of input you have there, this is a public forum and people are supposed to put their 2 cents in. its up to you to think for yourself and make up your own mind if other people's input is "stupid". as far as i can tell, its discouraged to call someone's input stupid in a post.

 

[devil-fire]

Actors ride in ferraris, people who make tvs, computers, soda, speakers, cards, doors, scissors, all ride in high priced cars. Would it be fair to steal a tv? You live in luxury compared to someone in a poor african nation. Should they be allowed to steal your car or your refrigerator?

the subject is not removal of material, its the duplication. if the poor african isn't stealing it but duplicating it, its not going to bother me at all. the person it will bother is the TV salesmen and chances are he will not mind a poor african not buying his TVs anyway.