Re: why-piracy-is-never-okay/

On 27/02/2013 22:32, Lee Passey wrote:
>
> On 2/17/2013 6:18 PM, josephHarris wrote:
>
> > On 17/02/2013 18:52, Lee Passey wrote:
> >>
> >> On 2/16/2013 11:30 AM, josephHarris wrote:
> >>
> >>> Excellent list of excuses and responses. From another list where 
> posted
> >>> by Marilynn Byerly.
> >>>
> >>> http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2013/02/why-piracy-is-never-okay/
>

Strangely enough your reply, on the whole, is not bad. But fairness to 
Ms Byerly, Lee, she was answering selected pirate claims. Your own 
comment on what I said misses my intention; possibly I was not clear.

Pirates themselves have no logical or moral defence, they take what does 
not belong to them, whichever law - or absence of law - is involved. My 
argument really is based on the reason for copyright, rather than any 
effects which might be criticised. As a basis the version in the US 
Constitution expresses its purpose and its achievement. It is a special 
law, and must be argued on its own merits; it does have many. My 
objection is, at base, a failure to recognise property.

Issues of copying onto owned devices and format shifting for the 
purchaser of a licence regarding an ebook are very different, and circle 
round what has been bought. It cannot parallel the print book, because 
the content is practically the whole of an ebook, and there is no sense 
in the idea that a purchaser owns any rights in the content, with or 
without copyright.

>
>
> There was nothing to specify. Every point made could be boiled down to:
>
> Pirate: copyright is stupid, so we shouldn't feel bound by it.
> Author: copyright is the law, and you must obey the law.
>
> You see, a non-sequitur--as it does not respond to either the contention
> that copyright is stupid, or that civil disobedience is the proper
> response--and a tautology: copyright should be the law because copyright
> /is/ the law.
>
<>
>
> > I would just make one point in response to what I have understood you
> > basic objection to be.
>
> My basic objection is that if Ms. Byerly is going to defend copyright,
> she's needs to actually defend copyright. This kind of list is not a
> dialog it is a diatribe; it's certainly not going to persuade anyone who
> questions the efficacy of current copyright laws, or even make them
> pause for thought. It's cheerleading for the copyright rich, nothing more.
>
> > Otherwise it is back to patronage and printer/publisher power - or even
> > to state control through paying approved creatives to write.
>
> Which I think would be, in many ways, superior to what we have now--but
> that would require a rational discussion, not a reactionary one.
>

The history of that kind of control is not happy. At worst it is 
dictatorial, and anti-democracy. As with so many things, there are often 
irrelevant and even undesirable inclusions to enable freedoms. And I see 
copyright as a great supporter and enabler of freedom of speech and an 
encouragement to democratic ideas. I am sure it is no coincidence that 
the major ideas of The Enlightenment were published, and mostly 
published in Britain, after the Queen Anne Act of 1710, when for the 
first time there was copyright, and that copyright was given to the 
creator. Prior monopolies were part of control systems which included 
censorship.

Joseph Harris


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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