Philosophical Quandry: Piracy

[Hunkpapa]

Originally posted by PvK:

Legally, maybe not. In the UK, they have receiver detection trucks like you see the Nazis using in war movies about the underground resistance. The UK authorities use this to "catch" people watching TV in their homes without having paid the "TV tax." I think that's pretty outrageous, personally. If your business involves beaming signals into my property, I say I have every right to decode them however I want to, regardless of how much theoretical money you might have made if I would submit to your contracts and subscription rates.

PvK[/QB]

That is a bunch of crap, I feel for you.

[Fyron]

PvK is from Germany though.

[tesco samoa]

pvk they should have people on everystreet cornor watching out for people who jay walk and ticket them.

It is as equally morally wrong. And all laws should be equally enforced

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by PvK:

Here's a variation. Suppose the "thief" has a device which picks up radio signals that drift out of the theatre from the projection, and let's him see the movie on a screen in his own home. Does he have the right to view the film this way? I say yes - he should be able to decode any signals passing through his own house.

Legally, maybe not. In the UK, they have receiver detection trucks like you see the Nazis using in war movies about the underground resistance. The UK authorities use this to "catch" people watching TV in their homes without having paid the "TV tax." I think that's pretty outrageous, personally. If your business involves beaming signals into my property, I say I have every right to decode them however I want to, regardless of how much theoretical money you might have made if I would submit to your contracts and subscription rates.

PvK

This is the exact situation with encrypted satellite TV services. The signal is there all the time, passing through your property. Why should you not have the right to decrypt it and watch? There are millions who think they have the right and they go right ahead and download the programs and/or build the boxes that let them access the programming without a twinge of guilt. The service providers are fighting the same sort of running battle as the [RI/MP]AA with constant new legal angles and new technologies trying to stem the leakage of their 'intellectual property'. They're having about the same degree of sucess, too.

For that matter, I've got a cable tv cable running along the wall outside my apartment. I could setup a sensitive antenna and watch cable for 'free' at the price of a somewhat fuzzier image than a direct link. (I've tested with a few TVs just out of curiousity. It does work. Coax isn't that well insulated, apparently... )

Aside from the fact that cable tv is just as sh*tty as broadcast tv ever was, but with more channels, I can't see any downside to it. I gave up watching tv years ago though, so I don't have to worry about whether it's 'ethical' to do so.

[ July 16, 2003, 01:17: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
So I am curious. Don't take this as sarcastic cause I am honestly asking to know. What is a fair method for a person who makes software to make sure he is properly compensated for his time and effort? It's not like all of us could go write our own game. Or even if we could we don't. So what should be the process involved so the developer can make a living producing software that we use and enjoy?

Geoschmo

Copyright is a fine system for encouraging creative activities. In exchange for publishing your work, whether it is art or science, you get an exclusive right to control it -- for a while. Unfortunately, we don't have copyright anymore. We have 'intellectual property' -- which is a complete fraud.

Information. Cannot. Be. Property.

Period. Full stop.

As already observed here, if you 'take' information the previous 'owner' is not deprived of its use.

Similarly, once someone knows something you can't take it back.

Information is fundamentally different from property, which is why a fundamentally different legal concept was created to deal with it. Copyright. And copyright recognizes that information is different from property by setting a limit on how long the original producer of the information may continue to claim the right to control it. This is common sense. As people keep using the information it gets more and more assimilated into daily life until it is part of the culture. Letting anyone claim a 'perpetual' right to control information is the same as letting someone claim the right to control the public discourse.

Yet, the corporations think they can force this unreal concept on us by buying laws. It doesn't matter to them that the REAL WORLD doesn't work that way, they are gonna buy politicians and PR campaigns until they get what they want. And then try to get the government they purchased to enforce it.

So here we are, several decades into the regime of 'intellectual property' -- I don't know when the term was first written into a law... does anyone here know? But the concept of making copyright perpetual by indirection dates back to the early years of this century when the retro-active extensions started being passed on a regular basis to protect the corporate stockpile of money making copyrights. Everything written/recorded/filmed since 1923, well before you or anyone else here was born, is still 'private property' to some suit who spends his/her life trying to figure out how to squeeze more money out of it. So we get the 'anthologies' with one or two new stories and a dozen old ones, the 'music compilations' and 'greatest hits collections' with one or two new songs and a dozen old ones, the 'Special Editions' and 'Directors Cuts' with 5 minutes of new footage in a 2 1/2 hour movie...

Of course, only a small fraction of the works published in all media since 1923 are still worth trying to make any money off of. Hardly anyone wants to listen to music from the early days of vinyl or early black and white films. The other 95+ percent of 'commercial' works, whatever their historical or cultural value, are simply dead weight that no librarian dares to re-copy for fear of a copyright lawsuit. Ah yes... because then these 'worthless' copyrights would suddenly be worth something. You could then sue some hapless librarian for 'violating' your copyright and suck some money out of them and the library they work for. So the history and culture of the 20th century is slowly crumbling away in our libraries, under the glare of hungry copyright -- erm, 'intellectual property' -- lawyers.

Beyond the large-scale damage done to history and culture, though, is the simple violation of common sense.

Did you know you are breaking copyright law when you sing 'Happy Birthday' at your private birthday party? It's more than a century old, by now. It's part of the culture -- the way we live our daily lives. Shouldn't the general public be allowed to continue what has become a folk tradition? They can't enforce this at present, but you can damn well bet they are working on ways to do so, what with all the 'surveillance' technology developing as fast as communications in general. I'm wondering when Coke will try to assert copyright on Santa Claus and sue everybody who's ever used the now 'universal' image of the bearded fat guy in the red suit. Santa as we know him now was first used in a Coke Ad in the 1920s so I expect the copyright is still legally valid.

The 'intellectual property' fraud has had an ugly effect on the actual producers of art and science, too. They've been hypnotized by the suits -- who are cheating them too -- into thinking it's those evil 'pirates' out there who are restricting their income. George Lucas is a good example of the 'artist' who should have been a lawyer. He sued over 'Battlestar Galactica' claiming that it was somehow infringing Star Wars simply because it was a space show with fighter craft flying around. And some poor sap got sued by Lucas in the 80s for creating a spreadsheet tutorial called 'The Templates of Doom' -- yes, he was 'infringing' on the Indiana Jones franchise by using a cute name for his tutorial and including a few references in the lessons.

Corporate GREED has blown the concept of copyright so completely out of proportion that it cannot be reasonably complied with anymore. Just like otherwise 'law abiding' people during Prohibition simply ignored the law and went on drinking, just like ordinary people (not 'religious fanatics' because the fanatics were the ones in power) during the most insanely rigid phases of Medieval 'religion' went on having their own opinions and getting murdered for it, people will continue incorporating new experiences into the 'public domain' -- the CULTURE -- because it's the natural thing to do. The human mind naturally retains experiences and organizes them together into patterns without stopping to think who owns what and pay the fees.

Computer software is a slightly different case than most art but it has suffered due to the abuse of copyright in the other areas I've described. Because the law has been so outrageously abused people have ceased to respect the law. Add to this the problem of uncertain expecations and it's no surprise that computer software copyrghts have been so meaningless to most people. With most consumer products you at least know what you're buying and you can judge whether the price is worth what you want. A car is a car, and you know what it is supposed to do and what it cannot be reasonably expected to do. The same goes for scads of small applianes from blenders to cell phones. A computer is a completely different animal. Software is incredibly mutable and can utterly transform the machine on your desk (or lap, as the case my be) from a game machine to a busines management system to a communications device. And each 'application' can be completely transformed from one Version of the software to another. So if you pay $500 for your spreadsheet program and six months later there's another 'Version' with bug fixes and a jillion new features, which you have you buy at some steep 'upgrade price'... what did you pay for? This is a very different relationship than we have to any other consumer product I am aware of. It's not surprising that people are so willing to ignore copyright in this case and just copy things because it's so easy to feel cheated a few months later. But as I said, thanks to the abuse of copyright in other ways the situation is even worse than it would otherwise have been.

If we could restore copyright -- a reasonable expectation that all new information will eventually become public domain -- we could cut down the piracy problem dramatically. It's the old fistful of sand problem. The harder you squeeze the more you lose.

[ July 16, 2003, 02:32: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[deccan]

Oooh, a philosophical discussion on the SEIV forum! My favorite kind! How come no one invited me!

*Grabs a soapbox and jumps into the discussion pit, accidentally knocking several people off-balance with armloads of books on law, morality and philosophy.*

Are EULAs really legal?

Originally posted by rdouglass:
I was just asking if anyone actually had evidence of a time where an EULA did NOT hold up (in the U.S. please - I know many things are OK in other contries).

And how well do you really think the defence "Well, I really didn't understand the fine print..." will hold up in court? In fact, a company in Texas was recently fined $173,000 for failing to comply with an EULA. If it was possible to circumvent the EULA, don't you think they would have tried?!?!?

Really? References please? I don't mean to imply that you're lying, simply that you might be mistaken. The case that you are referring to may have involved a more conventional paper agreement signed by the two parties, properly witnessed and advised by proper lawyers etc.

Here are some of mine:

A Growing Suspicion Over the Validity of Shrinkwrap Licensing: A Case Summary of SoftMan v. Adobe
http://216.239.41.104/search?q=Cache...hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Court: Network Associates can't gag Users
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-981228.html?tag=nl

Lawsuit challenges software licensing
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-983988.html

I note that the general consensus on this board is that EULAs are indeed indisputably legal. I think this reflects the generally accepted principle in Western society that agreements signed between two voluntary parties are legally enforceable. But this isn't really true. The law (i.e. legislation plus legal precedent) governs the kinds of agreements that can be enforced (agreements that sell people into slavery for example obviously aren't legal even if both parties agree), how they should be worded, under what kinds of conditions they can be enforced etc. pretty strictly. For example, under U.K. law, some kinds of agreements must be witnessed by a Commissioner of Oaths, some kinds of agreements must be made under seal and so forth. How else can lawyers earn their lavish fees?

The EULA is a relatively new and untested legal instrument. Until a history of cases is built up that precisely define the limits, practices, acceptable wordings and ways of signalling agreement etc. that govern EULAs, it's safe to say that EULAs are mostly there to intimidate Users.

[geoschmo]

Baron, all of that is quite interesting and thought provoking. But I have no idea why you quoted my question at the begining of it because it doesn't even partially address my question. It's just a more eloquent description of your view of the problem.

I agree with a lot of what you said. But I still would like to know what good is any copyright, even one with a limited lifespan, if you can't keep people from copying and giving away the work that you sell to make a living? How does someone like Aaron make a living writing software games if anyone can simply download a copy for free off the internet or get it from a friend without even an threat of legal repurcussions?

I don't think most people are like you Baron. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that the majority of people who copy software or music have not put as much thought into whether it is right or wrong as you have. They simply figure they can't really get caught and so they don't care if it's wrong. And I believe most people that don't copy software and music don't refrain out of an sense that it is inherantly wrong to do so without compensating the author. They don't do it simply because they believe that there might be a way they could get caught. Or they believe it is against the law to copy and obey the law. Excepting those that simply don't listen to music or play games of course.

So removing the threat of legal penalties, however impotent it may be, removes what little recourse the authors do have to control the use of their production, does it not?

Or are you saying that the current system of enforcment and penalties is acceptable as long as the term of the copyright is limited and not transferable? If that is what you are saying I suppose your post does sort of respond to my question. It was just a bit subtle and it took me a couple readings to see it.

Geoschmo

[ July 16, 2003, 13:58: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[Erax]

Baron, awesome post ! I could never express myself half as well as you have done it.

Geo, the current system of enforcement and penalties is not acceptable, because it fails to prevent piracy ! I personally feel that 'content' will eventually become free or nearly so through pressure from the competition (illegal though it may be).

If your perception of the current situation is correct (and I'd say it complements the Baron's post nicely), you shouldn't expect people to suddenly develop a better conscience. And copy-proof content is not too likely to happen either.

I'd say a business and legal model that faces the plain fact that you can't prevent people from copying content (no matter how much you'd like to) might satisfy all parties involved. The current system won't, no matter how hard they try to push it.

While content may be easily copied, service cannot. Therefore, a new business model will probably arise over time, something on the order of 'the car is yours for free, but you have to fill it up at my gas station'. That is one possibility. Open source is another. PvK's 'content tax' is another. Some day one of these proposals will replace the current standard.

[geoschmo]

Erax, exaplin to me how you expect a game such as SE4 could ever survive under such a system? What type of "service" would we be talking about here? Aaron gives away the game and sells patches? You honestly think something like that would work?

And how could authors of books and musicians make a living? What sort of "service" do I need for my Dan Fogelburg CD's or my Asimov books?

And I am sorry but Pvk's content tax idea is so unrealisitc and flawed I am not even sure how to effectivly comment on it. I didn't think he was actually suggesting it as a realistic possibility but as an extreme point for comparison.

Administrativly it would be a nightmare. Who would determine what is worthy of compensation. The government? I am not one of these people who thinks games like Grand Theft Auto should be censored or Banned, but I will be damned if I think my tax dollars should go to support it. The whole idea is so counter to the idea of a free market capitalist system I can't even find anything in it I like.

Geoschmo

[ July 16, 2003, 15:22: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[Baron Munchausen]

Geo,

You've almost got it. Copyright would work if the original 'public contract' were restored. The deal was that the original creator/compiler of the information got to control it for a limited time. Then it was public property. Corporate suits are trying to turn this into feudalism where we pay them forever. The right to control commercial exploitation of information has been mutated into 'financial damage' from losing 'potential' income and then mutated again into an imagined 'right' to the income that they think they should be getting. Feudalism didn't work with 'real' property, it sure isn't gonna work with 'intellectual' property. Those peasants went right ahead and poached game from the 'King's Land' when they were starving. Even the threat of mutilation (amputation of hands like the current wave of radicals in Islamic countries advocate for stealing) or outright death did not prevent them. Trying to make us all serfs on the corporate info-plantation is also doomed to failure and people instinctively recognize the unfairness of it. Since the current 'law' is completely contrary to the facts of life they ignore it. Just like the peasants who ignored the law that demanded they starve rather than go get the food they knew was there.

[ July 16, 2003, 15:38: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]