Piracy is wrong

[Sampo Syreeni]

On Sat, 29 Jun 2002, Anonymous wrote:

>Piracy - unauthorized copying of copyrighted material - is wrong. It
>inherently involves lying, cheating and taking unfair advantage of
>others.

On the contrary. Piracy, when defined your way, is a basic right. If
someone has information and can copy it, it is in no way the author's
concern. It would be if the author subsequently didn't have the work
available, but that clearly isn't the case. Since information can be
copied without in any way diminishing what the author has, piracy isn't
theft. Copyrights, instead, severely limit what individuals can do with
the information, equipment and other property they have.

Copyright is an artificial limitation on people's rights, upheld on
utilitarian grounds. It's a practice of granting a monopoly on some
information by fiat to correct a market that is supposedly broken. It
certainly isn't a property right, and the law doesn't pretend it ever was.
Instead what copyrights are is a monopoly on certain kind of
information/speech, backed by coercive power. Copyright is a compromise,
and the reasoning behind its current form of is quickly becoming obsolete.
Under the circumstances, it's no great surprise that there are such things
as copyright wars.

>Systems like DRM are therefore beneficial when they help to reduce
>piracy. We should all support them, to the extent that this is their
>purpose.

Well, then we shouldn't support them. DRM does not stop copying. If it
did, we wouldn't have a DMCA hanging over our heads.

>When an artist releases a song or some other creative product to the
>world, they typically put some conditions on it.

Sure. But one part of a functioning legal system should be that conditions
which cannot efficiently be enforced should not be. From my viewpoint,
conditions put on by an author are tantamount in idiocy to the Firstborn
Clause, and have nothing to do with what can be enforced.

>If you want to listen to and enjoy the song, you are obligated to agree
>to those conditions. If you can't accept the conditions, you shouldn't
>take the creative work.

Au contraire. Unless your conditions are fully compatible with the right
of individuals to do whatever they want with their CD-ROMs, T1s and P4s,
they should not be respected.

Intellectual and physical property are two institutions which cannot be
meshed. You can have one or the other, but if you try both, you will end
up with all sorts of nasty contradictions, or a severe bunch of
limitations and easements to one of the institutions. Also, anything you'd
ever want to do with IP short of building a second M$ can be achieved
utilizing what protection we have for physical property. The only
difference is, you will have to carry the costs. That's what's proper, not
bringing the Men with Guns to people's doorsteps to harrass them about
something they downloaded that's on the Internet anyways.

>The artist is under no obligation to release their work.

Then why do they?

>It is like a gift to the world.

Indeed, and I thank the artist.

>They are free to put whatever conditions they like on that gift, and you
>are free to accept them or not.

But how's that a gift, then?

>If you take the gift, you are agreeing to the conditions.

No. I can very well acknowledge beforehand that I will take all gifts
offered to me but will never respect any strings attached. After this, the
artist can decide for himself whether he wants to offer the gift.

>If you then violate the stated conditions, such as by sharing the song
>with others, you are breaking your agreement.

Well, this would be if there was a contract between me and the artist in
which I agreed to abide by the rules set out by the author. But there
isn't. I haven't promised anything, will not promise anything, and
certainly will not conceed any kind of IP law to be a personal promise by
me.

>You are taking advantage of the artist's creativity without them
>receiving the compensation they required.

No. I am picking up what the artist voluntarily left on the street to be
picked up.

>This isn't complicated. It's just basic ethics.

Indeed. My basic ethics says freedom of speech is absolute and covers any
act which involves solely the movement or expression of information.
Copying fits in nicely. In fact, I might argue there is an ethical
imperative to copy, as it doesn't take anything from the author, but
certainly gives a lot to those who don't already have a copy.

>It's a matter of honesty and trust. When someone makes you an offer and
>you don't find the terms acceptable, you simply refuse.

Come now. I'm getting my supply elsewhere, namely hot-mp3-warez.org. They
give me much better terms. Call that competition.

>You don't take advantage by taking what they provide and refusing to do
>your part. That's cheating.

You also don't do something you like and claim that others have agreed to
pay for it when in actuality they haven't. That would be fraud. Even when
that something is of use to others.

Anyway, this discussion got old before it even started. We could debate
ethics till the cows come home but what really matters, here, is who wins
the wars in the end. Is it studios backed up by law or individuals backed
up by hoardes of P2P programmers and DRM hackers? I'd put my bet on the
latter -- nations may be powerful enough to kill millions, but they
certainly aren't powerful enough to make a billion or so people respect
conditions on listening to their favorite music which Britney just came up
with.

Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy - mailto:decoy at iki.fi, tel:+358-50-5756111
student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front
openpgp: 050985C2/025E D175 ABE5 027C 9494 EEB0 E090 8BA9 0509 85C2