Re: NY Times Ethicist Condones Ripping Off E-books

On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 10:41 AM, Marion Gropen <[email protected]> wrote:

> I contend that, if the zeitgeist comes to see copyright violation as
> wrong, most people won't do it.
>
> The problem isn't ONLY that it's easy, but ALSO that it's acceptable.
> And it should not be.

I would lay at least some of the blame for this squarely at the feet
of the major publishers, software companies, and industry associations
whose names end in "AA". It seems like over the last twenty years or
so they've attempted to make every possible end run they can around
the rights consumers are permitted by law. That pesky "first sale"
thing? Counter it with click-through or shrinkwrapped licensing
agreements. Used software sales? Build in single-use access codes.
Create new media formats every few years, so consumers have to buy
their entire media library over again several times. Encumber newer
digital formats with DRM and make the DRM illegal to break, ostensibly
to prevent copying (since, after all, home cassette taping killed the
music industry, and videotaping TV shows to skip the commercials meant
that nobody could sell anything on TV anymore), but also to eliminate
a number of uses consumers had been accustomed to making with their
previous media (such as back-ups and format shifting).

When consumers see the rights they've come to take for granted being
taken away from them, they feel justified in breaking the law to
exercise the rights they feel they are supposed to have. And if *that*
copyright violation isn't wrong, then maybe this *other* copyright
violation isn't wrong either.

-- 
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