tedd wrote:
At 8:50 PM -0500 7/29/07, Larry Garfield wrote:
If copyright infringement were "taking something without paying for
it", then
anyone who's ever installed PHP is guilty of copyright infringement
unless
they sent Rasmus a check. That is, of course, nonsense.
No, it's not nonsense -- if the terms that Rasmus required were that we
had to send him a check, then that's what his terms would have been --
why must I state the obvious?
Fortunately, for all of us, his terms did not require that we had to
send him a check so that's the reason why we don't have to send him a
check -- again, why must I state the obvious?
Copyright exists to prevent unauthorised *usage* of material. It does
not exist to prevent the unauthorised taking of instances of that
material - that's what the laws regarding theft are for.
This is the fundamental difference between copyright infringement and
theft. Usage is not ownership, and you cannot steal usage.
According to Thames Valley Police here in the UK... "The basic legal
definition of theft is 'the dishonest appropriation of property
belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving that
person of it'."[1] How can that possibly apply to copyrighted material?
By infringing copyright you are not permanently depriving the
author/publisher/anyone of it.
You have a right to your belief, but that doesn't make your belief right.
This works both ways.
Your position that copyright infringement is not stealing is
fundamentally flawed.
How? Nobody is not being permanently deprived of the content you are
using in an unauthorised fashion.
"Digital Restriction Management" software that makes even Fair Use a
felony? Retroactively extending copyright terms? Making experimentation
with either art or technology either prohibited or prohibitively
expensive?
Yes, broken.
Larry: Fair use exists in the US, it does not exist in a lot of other
countries and whether it should exist at all is not relevant to this
discussion.
Also, the duration of copyright protection could not have less to do
with whether it can accurately be called theft or not. And I think
you'll find that patents prevent experimentation with either art or
technology.
It's only broken for those who want to infringe on other's work product
without paying for it, which includes getting permission.
That's a rediculous statement. Larry is not saying that there should not
be any protection for creative work, he's just saying that the current
system does not operate as well as it could. The main reason for this is
that the world changes faster than the law. But again, this is not
really relevant to the discussion.
As many people in this thread have already stated, most
artists/authors don't
actually benefit from this system.
Bullshit -- nobody has said that.
Additionally, artists/authors would certainly not benefit from your
point of view. Everything is open source with no responsibility to the
author -- it all up for grabs -- if you can get it, then woo ho it's
yours. Yeah, like that will work. Is that what you're advocating?
Because if you don't recognize copyright infringement as stealing, then
you are advocating stealing by calling it something else.
I don't believe Larry suggested everything should be "open source with
no responsibility to the author". All he's saying, and I agree, is that
the current copyright system is not perfect and need to be reviewed.
I dare say that copyright infringement is not a mortal sin.
Stealing is! And calling it by any other name doesn't get around that fact.
But it's not stealing. We talk about "stealing an idea" but in reality
that's not possible. Please tell me you can see that.
At every point, I have pointed out what the law actually says, and why
it says
it.
Again, bullshit. The spirit of the law is to prevent the stealing of
copyrighted material. Even the definition of "stealing" is defined as
taking another person property without permission and violating his
legal rights of ownership.
You're trying to prove that copyright infringement is stealing by using
the phrase "stealing of copyrighted material". The legal definition of
stealing does not allow it to be used like this.
Now, you want to confuse the issue by saying "copyright infringement" is
duplicating something authored without the permission of the copyright
holder, but it's not stealing -- instead, it's violating his rights of
ownership, which has the same definition as does the act of stealing.
You cannot "own" copyrighted material. You have control over it, not
ownership.
Stealing: taking another person property without permission and
violating his legal rights of ownership.
Copyright infringement: taking another person property without
permission and violating his legal rights of ownership.
I don't see much difference.
That's because you wrote the definitions. More accurately...
Stealing: the dishonest appropriation of property belonging to another
with the intention of permanently depriving that person of it
Copyright infringement: using material created by another person that is
under copyright protection without that persons permission
Copyright is not property, it's a legal protection.
And for that, I am accused of having no morality and values.
I don't think anyone has accused you of that, but saying what you have,
leaves us with the obvious conclusion that you don't recognize copyright
infringement as stealing -- and that does cast a long shadow as to
morality and values.
This is not an issue of morality. Whether you believe creative works
should be protected or not doesn't change the fact that legally speaking
copyright infringement is not the same as stealing. Likewise it does not
matter if you believe copyright infringement is a moral sin (whatever
your definition of a moral sin is).
Legally speaking, and I'd love to see a legal reference that disputes
this, copyright infringement is not stealing.
PS: I said I wouldn't get back into this argument, but your claims are
just absurd.
In my opinion so are yours. This is not an issue of morality, it's a
simple issue of language. Think about this... if I were to be accused of
copyright theft, surely I've stolen the right to control the material
because it's the control that copyright provides, not the material
itself. That simple 2-word phrase makes no sense at all. Here's hoping
that made my point of view a bit clearer.
-Stut
[1]
http://www.thamesvalley.police.uk/reduction/saferhomes/safehome/safe1.htm
--
http://stut.net/
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