Re: Re: "Why It's Wrong To Call Copyright Infringement 'Theft'"

Bryce,

There is a division here that you are not seeing. That is between the 
moral issues and the laws of the community. In moral terms 'theft' is 
taking what does not belong to you, and it can include many things. In 
legal terms 'criminal theft' is taking that which, by the privilege of 
specific laws, belongs to another. In civil law we talk of breach; 
colloquially the moral tone is applied by calling it theft.

In your last paragraph of Aunt Sallys (straw men) you accuse me of 
things I have not done, nor implied. Which is a shame because mostly you 
have argued quite clearly, showing little disagreement of the issues 
involving law. You have also in part chosen to respond to arguments I 
have not made; preferring some well worn arguments that are gone over 
frequently.

There is also a use of t he terms 'rights' where laws of property are 
privileges granted by the community; in that sense physical property has 
no greater presence than copyright. In both cases there is a granting of 
ownership and control over the property, physical or IP. Physical 
property is protected by criminal law, and therefore backed by the 
community's law enforcement bodies. Copyright is civil, and so 
enforcement depends on the energy and funds of the owner.

The other error that is constantly made is to assume the value of 
copyright is only financial. But people can have many reasons for 
guarding their IP creations. One is to prevent circulation of sensitive 
information; another of personal information, often emotionally 
sensitive. Diaries and letters will often be included in that.

Only in legal terms is 'copyright infringement' not theft; the law of 
the land can change at any time, moving such things in and out of 
criminal or civil law, even out of protection altogether. The moral 
issue, the moral code, remains constant.

Of course the law may or may not specify particular actions as criminal 
behaviour; thus the colloquial 'identity theft' may have no legal 
penalty if no financial cost or fraud or libel results. But the idea 
that identity is not owned by the person identified seems strange to me. 
Indeed 'personation' in elections is a crime under electoral law that 
outlaws use of another person's identity in voting.

Use by another must morally be a theft. There might be tight 
circumstances i n which permission may be granted (such as a proxy in 
voting), but that also is an assertion of ownership. Identity is 
certainly intangible, as is copyright.

While these argument may be involved in discussions of piracy, they 
stand outside that issue. That piracy is moral theft of another's 
copyright can hardly be disputed. That piracy is not currently legal 
theft under the copyright laws of most countries can also not be disputed.

Let me make it clear that I did not, in my last post, call you a pirate 
or a communist, or say you are laughably wrong; so far as I can recall I 
have not done any of those things in the past. That I often disagree 
with your take on a point (as you do with mine) does not deny that I 
respect your arguments, and consider them worth thought and considered 
response.

Joseph Harris

On 23/04/2012 15:19, Bryce Anderson wrote:
> Joseph,
>
> "Copyright infringement" isn't the same as theft.  "Identity theft" isn't the same as real theft (regardless of whether people object to the term).  That's the real issue here, and it's a pretty silly one.  You can't get "piracy is okay" from "piracy isn't the same as theft."  So I honestly don't see why people waste time arguing over it.
>
> Copyright is clearly a form of property, created by a government-granted monopoly on a specific work.  But saying that copyright infringement is theft is like saying that trespassing on a plot of land is theft.  If trespass occurs in conjunction with an actual theft, they're still two separate crimes.
>
> Identity "theft" is much the same.  When you use someone else's identity to, say, run up a credit card bill, two separate crimes get committed.  The first is the filing of a fraudulent credit card application (a "trespass" on your personal identity).  The second is the using of the card to get money, where a bunch of iPads disappear from a warehouse and a debt is levied against the identity owner.  That's the theft, and in this case it's a theft against the warehouse owner.
>
> Identity is a unique form of property, as you cannot legally sell or trade it.  It's certainly difficult to compare "my identity" to an ottoman or an SUV, just as it's difficult to compare ownership of your car to ownership of a piece of land, or to compare owning land to owning a copyright.  These discussions are futile if we can't accept that "property" means different things depending on the nature of the owned thing, and that the nature of the property dictates the collection of rights that come with "ownership."
>
> The whole argument here rests on the notion that, because "pirates" have not yet been seen objecting to the term "identity theft," and "identity" is intangible, intangible things can be owned and therefore copyright infringement is theft.  But in fact, the only reason the term hasn't been objected to before now is because the argument is novel; nobody's ever had a reason to object to it.
>
> Personally I don't care if the term "identity theft" stays in use, but a hard look at what actually happens in identity theft only shows that "identity theft" isn't theft; it doesn't prove that "copyright infringement" is.
>
> I did make a boneheaded mistake in declaring copyright "non-rivalrous."  While the copyrighted work is not rivalrous (my reading the work doesn't prevent you from reading it at the same time), the copyright itself is (you can't grant multiple publishers first publication rights, for example).  I still think that the rivalrousness of identity and non-rivalrousness of a copyrighted work is important in comparing identity to copyright.  But upon reflection, I don't see how comparing the two sheds any real light on the "copyright is theft" debate, a debate which I find rather silly in any case.
>
>   
> It's pretty obvious from our last encounter that you've decided -- based on nothing more than an argument for a slightly more permissive copyright system -- that I'm an evil pirate and probably a communist and hence laughably wrong about everything.  It seems pretty futile for me to try and persuade you of... well... anything we don't already agree on.  Or to persuade you that there are things which we do agree on.  So here's what I'm going to do.  I'm going to unsubscribe, then I'm going to recommit myself to spending less time arguing with people on the Internet and more time writing nifty things.  Oh, and releasing it all under Creative Commons licenses. 
>
>
> Bryce Anderson
>
>
> http://neonderbycars.blogspot.com
> http://twitter.com/darth_schmoo
>


------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------
Post a message:   ebook-community [[at]] *
Unsubscribe:      ebook-community-unsubscribe [[at]] *
Switch to digest: ebook-community-digest [[at]] *
Switch to normal: ebook-community-normal [[at]] *
Put mail on hold: ebook-community-nomail [[at]] *
Administrator:    ebook-community-owner [[at]] *

(* == yahoogroups.com)
-------------------------------------------------------Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ebook-community/

<*> Your email settings:
    Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ebook-community/join
    (Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
    [email protected] 
    ebook-community-fullfeatured-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@public.gmane.org

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    ebook-community-unsubscribe-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/