When a person makes a physical item, they can gain a salary and everyone is
happy, but when a person makes an information-based item, they can't gain a
salary except by somehow producing something else (like support or
something). The moral problem of the situation isn't about not harming the
person by depriving them of property; everyone will agree they still have
the items they started out with. The moral problem of the situation is that
someone has done something for you in return for an income, and you've spent
your energy thinking up and defending a loophole.
If a man helps you in return for you helping him, don't come up with excuses
to take advantage of the guy.
···
On 15/05/06, Elliot Temple <curi@curi.us> wrote:
On May 15, 2006, at 4:07 PM, Jeremy Tregunna wrote:
>
> On 15-May-06, at 7:03 PM, Elliot Temple wrote:
>
>> But is every case of piracy deserving of the same great scorn?
>
> Yes.
>
>> I realise this may be a tangential issue, but if someone can't
>> afford a book and is not going to buy it either way, whom has he
>> harmed by downloading it?
>
> That's like saying that you're stuck with someone, and you're not
> going to share your food either way, so what harm is there in
> killing the person now instead of letting him starve to death.
> That's just a silly way of thinking.
The harm there is that he would die sooner than he would if he were
left un-murdered. He loses that amount of his life. But the thing is,
who is harmed in the hypothetical case I described?
The harm there is that he would die sooner than he would if he were
left un-murdered. He loses that amount of his life. But the thing is,
who is harmed in the hypothetical case I described?
The argument was that wasn't going to get that money *anyway*.
If you're going to compare actions to murder, at least try to pay attention
···
On 16/05/06, Jeremy Tregunna <jtregunna@blurgle.ca> wrote:
On 15-May-06, at 8:14 PM, Elliot Temple wrote:
> The harm there is that he would die sooner than he would if he were
> left un-murdered. He loses that amount of his life. But the thing
> is, who is harmed in the hypothetical case I described?
The publisher, and as a result, the author; by not getting the money
for the book.
Keith Lancaster <klancaster1957@gmail.com> writes:
I cannot afford a Mercedes. I therefore have no plans to buy one. Should
I steal one? After all, nobody really gets hurt, do they?
I know you mean well, but it really bothers me when I see copyright
infringement equivocated with theft. It's not the same thing. It's bad
in this case, and it's *totally illegal*. Shouldn't that be enough of
a reason?
mswin32 1.8.4 windows xp sp2 español (no se si ocurre lo mismo en otros idiomas!!)
irb inutilizable.
No se pueden escribir @, [, ], {, } entre otras...
Se resuelve:
1.8.2:
modificar c:/ruby/bin/irb.bat eliminando --readline
1.8.4*
*usar irb --noreadline, o modificar c:/ruby/bin/irb.bat y forzar --noreadline
My guess is that they're trying to avoid a precedent being set.
···
On 5/16/06, Ryan Leavengood <leavengood@gmail.com> wrote:
[snip] Disney has been spear-heading the constant
increase of copyright expiration length in the US so that Steamboat
Willy (the first Mickey Mouse cartoon) will not go into the public
domain. I'm not sure why they want to do this, because I don't think
they are making any money off it anymore, plus it becoming public
domain does not release their trademark on Mickey. Maybe they are just
evil
http://www.megatokyo.com/ became a paper book after getting popular enough. the paper copy says in it that you can view them all, for free, at the website. it sells anyway.
I think Chris Pine's 'Learn to Program' is probably the best example
of free distribution leading to increased sales. He started out by
publishing a free tutorial, people found out that it was well written,
and was a great intro for beginners, and it eventually became a book.
>
> For all the emotion involved, the reality is that in every field,
> illegal downloads have an effect on sales. The effect is to increase
> sales for niche players and decrease sales for mainstream players.
> This has been found with movies and with music, so it's probably the
> case for code as well. Java is the mainstream player, and Rails is the
> niche. Irrespective of any passionate but utterly futile moral
> debates, the ultimate economic result of this phenomenon is good for
> anybody selling Rails books, including David Black.
I agree that it works that way, I just don't agree with the
perspective that you're viewing it from. What if you change the scope
from 'books about all programming languages' to 'books about ruby
and/or rails'? In the world of Ruby, and Rails, David Black is hardly
a 'niche player'.
Yes, actually, he is. The mainstream book is Agile Web Dev with Rails.
"Ruby for Rails" appeals to people who actually take the time to
figure out what they're doing in intricate detail so they can do it
much better than average. Unfortunately, such people will always be a
niche, by definition.
It might help to own a copy of 'Ruby for Rails' to understand why I
think that way. I'm about half way through it, and I highly recommend
that all Ruby users _buy_ a copy. It's an excellent book, and helps
build a stronger understanding of Ruby in general (ie: it's _not_ just
for Rails users).
I do own a copy, as it happens. I bought both the PDF and the physical
edition, which I am looking forward to receiving. It is indeed a very
good book.
But I do not think the quality of the book makes any difference.
Downloads are reshaping copyright, and this is very emotional for some
people. I am not one of those people. I don't care. I just look at the
numbers and make rational decisions. The numbers are very clearly in
Dr. Black's favor. Illegal downloads increase sales for niche players.
All these moral arguments are empty words -- full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing. The reason is simple: illegal downloads of your
book will give you a better reputation and better sales. When people
are improving a man's reputation and increasing his sales, telling
those people that they are doing that man harm is not entirely
logical.
I guess it comes down to who is a niche player, and personally, I
don't think it's right to use that subjective decision to determine
that it's ok to download any author's pdf, because I think they're a
niche player, and by downloading it, I'm going to help them down the
road.
I really don't think it has anything to do with who is or isn't a
niche player. The reason illegal downloads in music hurt mainstream
artists and help everybody else is because mainstream artists suck.
The music is designed to get in your head and stay there irresistibly
for six weeks, after which time it disappears from your consciousness
forever. The sales for these fools fall off because their whole
business model is based on planned obsolescence and marketing
oversaturation -- in short, because their product is crap. You can see
similar things happening with Tom Cruise movies. Dr. Black's product
is not crap, so this danger is a nonissue for him.
···
On 5/16/06, Bill Guindon <agorilla@gmail.com> wrote:
On 5/16/06, Giles Bowkett <gilesb@gmail.com> wrote:
I try not to call it theft either. Whilst some people equate copyright
infringement with theft, they are substantively and legally different.
Whether they are morally equivalent is a different matter, though.
Confusing the vocabulary doesn't help to advance the debate.
There's significant jail time in a federal prison as well as up to $250K per
incident for copyright infringment. This compares with little or no jail
time for petty theft... stealing a book off a shelf. So, you are correct
that the law takes a different view of violating Intellectual Property
rights and petty theft. The law views violations of IP rights (e.g.,
illegally sharing the PDF of a book) as much worse offenses.
I see no debate about flagrantly violating the law by illegally distributing
the PDF of David's book. While there might be a fair use justification for
emailing a friend a copy so he/she can evaluate it before buying it, there's
no legal justification for putting the PDF on a P2P system. Such actions
are violations of the law and deprive an author of earning a legitimate fee
for a valuable offering.
If you don't like the price for the PDF don't buy it. It works the same way
for a virtual good as it does for a physical good.
···
On 5/16/06, Paul Battley <pbattley@gmail.com> wrote:
I've written a model world in Ruby to illustrate some of the issues being discussed (see below or http://curi.us/code/piracy.html\). The main thing it demonstrates is the difference between stealing and piracy/copying. (This is the longest Ruby program I've written. Any code style tips would be appreciated.)
Regarding releasing books in PDF format: Paper things are commonly scanned if there is demand for them. Manga and anime are translated to English every week by pirates. I don't think relying on the laziness of pirates will work well.
I cannot afford a Mercedes. I therefore have no plans to buy one. Should
I steal one? After all, nobody really gets hurt, do they?
The dealership is hurt by having one less car. See output below.
who is harmed in the hypothetical case I described?
The publisher, and as a result, the author; by not getting the money for the book.
By this criterion (not getting money), the publisher and author are equally harmed by a person who does nothing and a pirate (see program).
If I'm not disrupting an author's future sales, I'm not harming him. And it has to be quite clear he would have gotten those sales, or he has no legal case. And even if he would have gotten sales, many ways to disrupt those sales are and should be legal, including telling people the book is terrible, writing a better book, and buying all bookstores worldwide and remodeling them to sell only coffee.
A writer works on their book based on the premise that they will be
reimbursed for each copy, thus making it worth their while --
otherwise they wouldn't bother writing it.
That isn't *really* the premise. The author needs to get paid, but there are many different payment models possible. The most obvious approach would be that anyone who reads the book owes the author money. This is very hard to enforce, so selling physical copies is commonly used instead. The physical copy approach has obvious loopholes to screw the author. For example, people trade books around so they can all read one copy. This way of screwing authors has been formalised as libraries and used book stores. In theory, the entire world could read a book that only sold one copy. And that'd be perfectly legal! But it doesn't happen. So the important thing is not what *could* happen, but whether in a given culture authors are, in fact, paid. Because, as you say, if they were not then many potential authors would not write their books.
# piracy.rb
# Elliot Temple
# 5/16/06
class Person
attr_accessor :inventory
def initialize @inventory =
end
def steal store, item_name
add_inventory store.delete_item!(item_name)
end
def copy store, item_name
add_inventory store.copy_item(item_name)
end
def do_nothing
end
def add_inventory item @inventory << item if item
end
end
class Item
attr_accessor :name, :price
def initialize name, price @name = name @price = price
end
end
class Car < Item
end
class Book < Item
end
class Store
def initialize items, noun, store_name @inventory = items @noun = noun @store_name = store_name @initial_inventory_value = inventory_value @initial_item_count = @inventory.length
end
def delete_item! item_name
item = @inventory.find {|i| i.name == item_name} @inventory.delete item
end
def copy_item item_name @inventory.find {|i| i.name == item_name}
end
def inventory_value @inventory.inject(0) {|total, item| total + item.price}
end
def status_report
puts "I am #{@store_name}. This is my status report:"
puts "I began with #{@initial_item_count} #{@noun}s and now I have #{@inventory.length} #{@noun}s."
puts "My #{@noun}s were worth $#{@initial_inventory_value}. Now they are worth $#{inventory_value}."
if @initial_inventory_value < inventory_value
puts "I made: $#{inventory_value - @initial_inventory_value}. I am happy"
elsif @initial_inventory_value == inventory_value
puts "I broke even. I am content."
else
puts "I lost: $#{@initial_inventory_value - inventory_value}. I am sad."
end
end
end
class CarDealership < Store
def initialize store_name, cars
super cars, "car", store_name
end
end
class Bookstore < Store
def initialize store_name, books
super books, "book", store_name
end
end
On May 15, 2006, at 5:51 PM, Keith Lancaster wrote:
On May 15, 2006, at 6:45 PM, Jeremy Tregunna wrote:
On May 15, 2006, at 7:39 PM, John Gabriele wrote:
#
# I am Casandra's Crazy Cars. This is my status report:
# I began with 3 cars and now I have 2 cars.
# My cars were worth $129000. Now they are worth $74000.
# I lost: $55000. I am sad.
#
# I am Bob's Big Books. This is my status report:
# I began with 3 books and now I have 3 books.
# My books were worth $48. Now they are worth $48.
# I broke even. I am content.
"If I can't afford it or wouldn't pay for it anyway, who would it harm ?"
There are two parts to this: you're not getting any money from me anyway and
I'm not harming by taking it.
If you need the book like a man who is destitute needs a loaf of bread
(you're going to die or suffer serious injury) no one is going to have much
moral scorn for you if you take it. If that's the case, ask the author for
a copy, your friends for some money, your library for a copy; if no one can
help you, by all means, take it.
The argument isn't usually used as a defense of that sort of thing.
Instead, those who give it simply want something pleasurable. Since this is
almost certainly the case, if a man works hard for your enjoyment and asks
for something in return that you can't provide, why not forgo the pleasure
instead of treating him like a slave who must provide for your wants for
nothing in return ?
If he's not getting anything pleasurable (money) from you anyway, why are
you getting anything pleasurable (knowledge presented well) from him anyway
? Is he your slave ?
You may not be causing him any harm, sure. However, this is a parlor trick,
a magician's misdirection: look at this one moral harm over here I've
avoided, ignore the one behind the curtain. The moral problem isn't harm,
it's taking without giving when you didn't need to take at all.
In the hands of a master, situational ethics are neither.
Yes, you can quote me on that. I do however, reserve the right to
charge for use of this quote at some point in the future.
At that time, the good people among you will either choose to not use
the quote, or pay the requested fee. The remainder will pay the rather
hefty fee of being an asshole.
I accept both forms of payment. The way I look at it, those people
willing to be assholes make me feel better about not being one. This is
valuable to me. It would be very expensive to actually pay the several
billion willing assholes on the planet to make me feel better about
myself. By stealing from me, they effectively do so for a rather small
fee.
Are you arguing that the word 'theft' is reserved to describe the misappropriation of tangible goods and therefore doesn't apply to copyright infringement or are you trying to say that there is some ethical difference between the two situations? I'm confused.
Gary Wright
···
On May 16, 2006, at 11:25 AM, Phil Hagelberg wrote:
Keith Lancaster <klancaster1957@gmail.com> writes:
I cannot afford a Mercedes. I therefore have no plans to buy one. Should
I steal one? After all, nobody really gets hurt, do they?
I know you mean well, but it really bothers me when I see copyright
infringement equivocated with theft. It's not the same thing. It's bad
in this case, and it's *totally illegal*. Shouldn't that be enough of
a reason?
> The harm there is that he would die sooner than he would if he were
> left un-murdered. He loses that amount of his life. But the thing
> is, who is harmed in the hypothetical case I described?
The publisher, and as a result, the author; by not getting the money
for the book.
The argument was that wasn't going to get that money *anyway*.
If you're going to compare actions to murder, at least try to pay attention
You'll note if you had been paying attention that I wasn't comparing those actions to murder, I was comparing the *THOUGHT PROCESS* to reach his conclusion that it wasn't harming anyone. Try to keep up.
···
On 16-May-06, at 9:51 AM, Dick Davies wrote:
On 16/05/06, Jeremy Tregunna <jtregunna@blurgle.ca> wrote:
Just to clarify, "Fair Use" does not cover redistribution in its entirety (be it performance, literary, or otherwise); it merely allows for limited use of sections of the work in various circumstances. (i.e., I can take a few lines of <insert book here> and use it in satire, which would be protected under the "Fair Use" provisions of US and Canadian law (and presumably others internationally).
···
On 16-May-06, at 6:08 PM, David Pollak wrote:
While there might be a fair use justification for emailing a friend a copy so he/she can evaluate it before buying it,
From an ethical standpoint, I don't see why it matters if someone is
harmed by your ripping off his work. Receiving a benefit from someone
without compensating him in return makes you a low life. (I bought the
pdf, by the way)
···
If I'm not disrupting an author's future sales, I'm not harming him.
And it has to be quite clear he would have gotten those sales, or he
has no legal case. And even if he would have gotten sales, many ways
to disrupt those sales are and should be legal, including telling
people the book is terrible, writing a better book, and buying all
bookstores worldwide and remodeling them to sell only coffee.
Are you arguing that the word 'theft' is reserved to describe the misappropriation of tangible goods and therefore doesn't apply to copyright infringement or are you trying to say that there is some ethical difference between the two situations? I'm confused.
Gary Wright
Theft: If I steal the shirt off your back you no longer have a shirt.
Copyright infringement: If I steal the design of the shirt on you back you still have a shirt.
There is a difference and the case law to support it.
Are you arguing that the word 'theft' is reserved to describe the
misappropriation of tangible goods and therefore doesn't apply to
copyright infringement or are you trying to say that there is some
ethical difference between the two situations? I'm confused.
Gary Wright
There is an ethical difference.
It's unethical to artificially limit a resource simply so that you can
profit.
