I'm not sure if i'm allowed to share this - but it made me gasp

[molona]

Wow molona. What else can I say?

Mine is mine and yours is yours. Can you not understand that?

Maybe I didn't explain myself very well... let me see if I can do better. What's yours is yours and you are entitled to do with it whatever you like and charge for it as much as you like.

What I don't agree with is that you call thief to whoever makes a copy without your permission. Not all cases are the same, not all imply loss of profit, not all imply loss of business and sometimes it may even help you grow your reputation.

Yet, you said that it was theft and (and this is my own conclusion, correct me if I am wrong) lack of integrity.

I respect your opinion but I can't agree that everybody is thief because of that.

edit: I also wondered if copyright infrigment should always be considered theft and it is the same thing. Because in some instances, I undertand that analogy but in others, I don't.

Errr... but there are very specific copyright laws that define when a work goes to public domain and when someone can copy it. Looks pretty black and white to me!

I am confused here.... are laws right or should they be changed or what? Because at some point someone said that law was one thing and morality something else and laws didn't reflect reality and all that.

The law in my country says that it is legal for me to get a copy if it is for my own personal use and I am not going to make profit by selling it.

Then again, lawys are most of the time interpreted by judges and lawyers... and not everybody, like here, has the same vision.

Please, do let me know if I haven't made myself clear else I will leave it here because we can all agree that we're going in circles and getting nowhere.

[molona]

You've brought up 3 points why you think it isn't wrong, right?

No, I estated three facts that were in the original case

1.- He charged 3500
2.- He got a referral
3.- He couldn't be 100% sure that the couple were going to buy the pictures.

[php_daemon]

I am confused here.... are laws right or should they be changed or what? Because at some point someone said that law was one thing and morality something else and laws didn't reflect reality and all that.

The law in my country says that it is legal for me to get a copy if it is for my own personal use and I am not going to make profit by selling it.

Then again, lawys are most of the time interpreted by judges and lawyers... and not everybody, like here, has the same vision.

Please, do let me know if I haven't made myself clear else I will leave it here because we can all agree that we're going in circles and getting nowhere.

Well, I'm just as confused. This whole thread puzzles me. I do understand that in some countries it's not illegal to copy it for personal use (I'm not even sure how it is in mine). But where do you copy it from?

It's not illegal to copy it, but is it legal to allow someone to copy it from you if you have bought an original which doesn't give you the right to distribute it? Distribution without consent is, I think, illegal in most countries.

That someone copies something for their personal use, you probably won't even know about it. And in some cases, like singing in the shower, you might not even want to know about it But it's when they start distributing it is when the problems begin. And to be able to download something, someone has to distribute it. So this copying thing will always be wrong at the root level.

[php_daemon]

No, I estated three facts that were in the original case

1.- He charged 3500
2.- He got a referral
3.- He couldn't be 100% sure that the couple were going to buy the pictures.

But why did you do it? Sagewing has stated the same facts to ask a question if it's right to copy photos without permission. You didn't just repeat them for the heck of it?

[AlexDawson]

Datura: What on earth are you talking about? I'm not questioning the copyright or the intellectual property, I'm questioning whether it's right someone should release their work as their wish but refuse to serve certain people on the basis that it doesn't meet their ideals of who they want as clients. An example would be like when SitePoint offered PDF versions of their ebook but decided to charge extra for versions for the kindle. I'm not saying anything about simply letting people "take your work" - as in stealing it, I'm talking about people who pay for something but copy it beyond the license in order to use that paid copy in a manner the author didn't provide for. You know all too well that I wasn't talking about stealing the copyright, please don't write out of context.

I thought Amazon mp3 were DRM free?

They are but their range is pretty "selective", until I know I can get the music I want without being violated, I'm not going to spend another penny on digital music.

[Datura]

Maybe I didn't explain myself very well... let me see if I can do better. What's yours is yours and you are entitled to do with it whatever you like and charge for it as much as you like.

What I don't agree with is that you call thief to whoever makes a copy without your permission. Not all cases are the same, not all imply loss of profit, not all imply loss of business and sometimes it may even help you grow your reputation.

Yet, you said that it was theft and (and this is my own conclusion, correct me if I am wrong) lack of integrity.

I respect your opinion but I can't agree that everybody is thief because of that.
I am confused here.... are laws right or should they be changed or what? Because at some point someone said that law was one thing and morality something else and laws didn't reflect reality and all that.

The law in my country says that it is legal for me to get a copy if it is for my own personal use and I am not going to make profit by selling it.

Then again, lawys are most of the time interpreted by judges and lawyers... and not everybody, like here, has the same vision.

Please, do let me know if I haven't made myself clear else I will leave it here because we can all agree that we're going in circles and getting nowhere.

Ok molona, here it goes again:

You made yourself quite clear actually

Yes, I call people thieves that take stuff that does not belong to them. Obviously you are aware that the term thief means something negative.

All cases of theft are the same because when your base of judging something is rooted in the principle that there is never any distinction of all the variants of theft, then you do not have to go into concrete examples to explain the minutiae of understanding specific areas of debate.

It is part of your problem that you think in concretes versus principles to understand this issue. And yes it is lack of integrity to take stuff that is not yours.

A person who lives by the standards of respecting the rights of any other person on earth and only wants in return other people to respect their rights, all force of taking from an individual (or corporation or group) is theft.

Losing profits has very little to do with the fundamental right of a person to determine what is done with/to his work.

I know that you have a hard time getting this because of the way you have always looked at this, but you must see that when you build your argument about right and wrong there is nothing gray in between. You like to say that there are many gray areas in this, but if you keep repeating this you will never come to understand the fundamental issue of right and wrong.

Just because societies allow things like theft as legitimate does not make them so. It is an ethical issue and laws have as their foundation ethics, so when an ethics is corrupt, corrupt laws are guide by which people live. Objectified corruption is what laws are often today, almost always were, so in a way you are a victim of that.

[Datura]

Datura: What on earth are you talking about? I'm not questioning the copyright or the intellectual property, I'm questioning whether it's right someone should release their work as their wish but refuse to serve certain people on the basis that it doesn't meet their ideals of who they want as clients. An example would be like when SitePoint offered PDF versions of their ebook but decided to charge extra for versions for the kindle. I'm not saying anything about simply letting people "take your work" - as in stealing it, I'm talking about people who pay for something but copy it beyond the license in order to use that paid copy in a manner the author didn't provide for. You know all too well that I wasn't talking about stealing the copyright, please don't write out of context.


They are but their range is pretty "selective", until I know I can get the music I want without being violated, I'm not going to spend another penny on digital music.

Yes Alex, the owner of something should have the right to determine who can buy what they have to offer.

The thing is that PC laws today have so twisted all issues that people take for granted that they can do anything they please with somebody else's goods. And yes it is legal in many countries, but it is morally wrong.

[Sagewing]

Molona, I'm still confused about your answer to my hypothetical photographer.

He doesn't want the photos distributed.

Is it right or wrong? ethical or not ethical? OK or not OK for the client to have taken the photos without paying for them?

This is a specific example, not a vague idea that can be explored with a bunch of 'what if'' questions. What do you think?

[molona]

It is part of your problem that you think in concretes versus principles to understand this issue. And yes it is lack of integrity to take stuff that is not yours

That's the thing. Nobody takes anything from you. Your are left with the original and your vision.

Losing profits has very little to do with the fundamental right of a person to determine what is done with/to his work.

Sorry, don't agree. Maybe that's your case but the whole debate about rights is precisely because the alledged loss of money as it is this whole thread. Because all this polemic was precisely started years ago by the big lables because the alledgely loss of money. And if these companies weren't putting pressure to create new laws to protect their power, it is unlikely that this debate would have been taken placed here today at this scale.

[silver163]

Ok, but what about the question - is it acceptable for take his photos? The price may be high, but remember this is a hot photographer with lots of business and does great work, so he sets his own price.

did he pay the photographer for the time he spent taking the photos or did he not pay for the prints? i am confused here.

see here is the issue with photos they are very personal, i am sure you wouldn't me to sell you photos of some other wedding couple now you would for your own wedding book or album. so photos are a different commodity in general versus music or software or whatever.

you see pirates aren't potential clients, they are nothing they won't ever buy your product even if you managed to get rid of piracy completely.

[Sagewing]

Because all this polemic was precisely started years ago by the big lables because the alledgely loss of money. And if these companies weren't putting pressure to create new laws to protect their power, it is unlikely that this debate would have been taken placed here today at this scale.

I don't think that's true. This very discussion started with a discussion of Sitepoint books being pirated around the Internet. Piracy affects software and other forms of intellectual media.

Blaming the 'big labels' is getting pretty tired. I am protective of my work, too!

[molona]

Molona, I'm still confused about your answer to my hypothetical photographer.

He doesn't want the photos distributed.

Is it right or wrong? ethical or not ethical? OK or not OK for the client to have taken the photos without paying for them?

This is a specific example, not a vague idea that can be explored with a bunch of 'what if'' questions. What do you think?

The photographer has a point but the couple also has a point. These pictures are not pictures the photographer made with models and which the couple then distributed. Or if he did them for free to add them to his own portfolio and then the couple forwarded to their friends. The only thing that the copule didn't pay for was for the printed copies which they did themselves.

So... is it right for the photographer to keep the the digital versions when he was already paid to do those pictures?

[Sagewing]

did he pay the photographer for the time he spent taking the photos or did he not pay for the prints? i am confused here.

see here is the issue with photos they are very personal, i am sure you wouldn't me to sell you photos of some other wedding couple now you would for your own wedding book or album. so photos are a different commodity in general versus music or software or whatever.

you see pirates aren't potential clients, they are nothing they won't ever buy your product even if you managed to get rid of piracy completely.

In the example, the clients paid for the photographers time. And let's say that, just like in my wedding, the photographer charged a set amount that included a small set of photos. Additional photos came with a charge. The clients wanted additional photos so they generated them on their own using proofs and didn't pay the photographer.

The objective of the hypothetical is to determine what degree of control the producer of some electronic media has on the distribution of that content. To adjust for this discussion, we have added that the photographer may or may not have made profit on those photos in the future, because the clients said they won't pay for additional photos but obviously the photographer thinks there's a chance that they would one day. We've also determined that no actual material loss was incurred by the photographer, since the assets were digital.

The question about future sales is intentionally moot in this hypothetical - the couple says they wont pay for the photos. But the photographer says (like mine did) that in his 30 years of experience, many couples come back years later when they are more sentimental and have deeper pockets and want to buy some photos after all. So, we just don't know if he 'lost revenue' or not but we know that his business model is set up the way he wants it set up.

[Sagewing]

The photographer has a point but the couple also has a point. These pictures are not pictures the photographer made with models and which the couple then distributed. Or if he did them for free to add them to his own portfolio and then the couple forwarded to their friends. The only thing that the copule didn't pay for was for the printed copies which they did themselves.

So... is it right for the photographer to keep the the digital versions when he was already paid to do those pictures?

Well, why not? He was paid for his time and presumably the couple knew that the would be a fee for additional prints. Just like everyone knows that Photoshop costs $xx. So, there isn't any confusion here - he had a cost to take the photos and another cost for prints, like many photographers do.

[tke71709]

I would say media sales have plummeted because much of what is produced these days is pretty rubbish, if I see another Miley Cyrus DVD I'll probably cry

And I would respond by saying that with the large amount of piracy of music nowadays that the best way to make money in music is to churn out generic crap so that you can actually get enough in actual sales to make a profit.

If 40% of all music is pirated (totally made up stat on my part) then you need to churn out some generic hit music to cover the fixed costs of producing music for your successful and unsuccessful artists.

[tke71709]

The photographer has a point but the couple also has a point. These pictures are not pictures the photographer made with models and which the couple then distributed. Or if he did them for free to add them to his own portfolio and then the couple forwarded to their friends. The only thing that the copule didn't pay for was for the printed copies which they did themselves.

So... is it right for the photographer to keep the the digital versions when he was already paid to do those pictures?

The couple paid for a set of rights, if they wanted additional rights then they should have negotiated a higher price for those rights.

Part of the way that the photographer keeps the initial costs down is to charge people for the printed copies based on how many they want. Otherwise the photographer has to charge everyone more, regardless of whether they want 1000 prints or 10.

[randyman5775]

It is not the same if the company or person still has big profits with that product. Madonna, as an example, is as rich as she can get. Careful, it is still wrong, but it is not the same to take it from someone that really and desparately needs it that from someone that doesn't.

I can think of a lot of reasons that people excuse piracy, but this one just justifies robbing from the rich.

I wrote a book, and my boss stole it from me after he told me the company wasn't going to use it. I found out that HE SOLD IT for 5 years without my knowledge. When I started to sue him for copyright infringement, I was told by several people that he used the money to play "secret Santa" for poor families. Well, it's great that he was so generous with MY MONEY, but in this case he decided for me that I didn't need the money.

Bottom line -- we should be honest and let people decide what they do with their own profits.

[hash]

Losing profits has very little to do with the fundamental right of a person to determine what is done with/to his work.

But this right doesn't fully exist. As mentioned, you can't discriminate when you are determining what can be done. You also have no control over what is done with a book (I'm not sure on the laws covering software/art/etc, but a book serves as a good example) after you sell a copy. It can be shredded, lent out, resold ... Perhaps you don't want it lent out? Tough. I get that it's morally wrong to do something with someones property that they don't want done, but it's also morally right, and protected by law.

I'd say the whole point of this thread is about profits. SP is obviously not spending money chasing pirate copies of their books purely because they feel their personal rights have been infringed upon.

I see piracy and file sharing as two separate things. Piracy is someone taking my work, copying it, and selling it for a profit. This is causing real and measurable loss. File sharing is someone liking my work enough that they decided to share it with the world. Perhaps it causes a loss in sales, perhaps a gain, there is simply no way to know. But looking at the two industries that are supposedly hardest hit by all of this, they seem to be doing fine. So, until someone can show some objective evidence of how file sharing is doing any significant damage I'm going to take the position that the benefits outweigh the costs.

[r937]

I see piracy and file sharing as two separate things. Piracy is someone taking my work, copying it, and selling it for a profit. This is causing real and measurable loss. File sharing is someone liking my work enough that they decided to share it with the world.

you were doing so well in this thread, right up until here

there is no difference between piracy and file sharing, they both steal

you seem to be saying that it's okay to steal if you just give it away for free

[randyman5775]

I think some of you are forgetting the end user license agreement. This isn't like a book that you can lend to someone. The EULA says the owner is still the company or person that owns the copyright. It's not the same as loaning your rake to a neighbor -- it's more like lending the neighbors rake to another neighbor, who loans it to his uncle, etc., and the original owner now has to buy a new rake because the rest of those guys are too cheap to buy their own. How many of you that do this for a living would be out of business and doing something else, because cheapskates and thieves decided you didn't need to profit from your labor?

[molona]

Well, why not? He was paid for his time and presumably the couple knew that the would be a fee for additional prints. Just like everyone knows that Photoshop costs $xx. So, there isn't any confusion here - he had a cost to take the photos and another cost for prints, like many photographers do.

There's no confusion sagewing. You want this hypothetical couple to pay the rate the photographer asked and receive nothing back because they didn't pay for the prints. Is that right? I pay for a job to receive nothing?

Anyway, he didn't even had that other cost, the printing cost because the couple took care of it themselves.

And yet, very likely (and many photographers do this) he will take the best pictures to show them to other couples and get new jobs but he didn't even ask the couple if he could do so. Is he right for using their image (maybe not their picture but yes their faces and bodies) to do this? Or is he a thief?

Or better yet. Answer to this. A teenager has to move to another town away where she used to live, maybe to another coutry. There's this band she loved so much and she bought the album. She gets to the new town and she's suprised that the band she loves is completely unknown... she's a huge fan but she can't hear her favourite song on the radio because nobody there knows the band. So she makes a copy of the song, sends it to the local radio station that on her request play the song.... and thousands of people hear it and request the same song... the word start spreading... people record the song from the radio and ask their friends "have you heard this?"
It is getting big, so much so that the original record lable hear about it and decide to lauch it in that city. As a result, the band started to make loads of money and made concerts worlwide and became famous.
The girl made a copy and the radio station played it and the band got huge benefits even when they were never asked and the record label never knew about it till people took an interest on it.

Is that wrong?

[hash]

you were doing so well in this thread, right up until here

there is no difference between piracy and file sharing, they both steal

you seem to be saying that it's okay to steal if you just give it away for free

No, I'm saying it's ok to share if the benefit outweighs the cost. If you asked MS whether they would prefer people ran pirate copies of Windows or Linux in a third world country (and were able to obtain an answer :S) I'm pretty sure they would say Windows for the lockin it would give them.

I simply believe that there are positive aspects to file sharing, and these outweigh the negative ones. I'm open minded about this though, I've just not seen any evidence that file sharing has a significant net deficit.

If I have a movie in digital form, and I didn't pay for it or receive it as a gift, is there anything wrong here? Perhaps I downloaded it via the pirate bay, perhaps I recorded it with my pvr. The end result does not matter, but in one case you would call me a thief, and I assume haul my **** off to the big house.

[molona]

I can think of a lot of reasons that people excuse piracy, but this one just justifies robbing from the rich.

Again, first you need to prove that Madonna has lost anything. It is still her song, it is still her music and recognised as such and she stills has her original. The only thing should could have lost is the cash that person didn't pay.. and yet that's still need to be proved.

But let's say that this person stopped buying the song because he got it for free (case in which Madonna does lose something) and even worse, that this guy sells it to someone else making profit. Definately, it is wrong and the guy is a thief but certainly Madonna's life style is not hurt in the same way that you'd be hurt. That's not a excuse, it is a fact unless it happened to you and you could afford the life style Madonna has.

I wrote a book, and my boss stole it from me after he told me the company wasn't going to use it. I found out that HE SOLD IT for 5 years without my knowledge. When I started to sue him for copyright infringement, I was told by several people that he used the money to play "secret Santa" for poor families. Well, it's great that he was so generous with MY MONEY, but in this case he decided for me that I didn't need the money.

Bottom line -- we should be honest and let people decide what they do with their own profits.

Fair enough. But you don't sound upset because he used the book but because he made a profit and used it the way he thought correct. I don't hear your crying because you work was used but for the money you did lose.

[php_daemon]

Or better yet. Answer to this. A teenager has to move to another town away where she used to live, maybe to another coutry. There's this band she loved so much and she bought the album. She gets to the new town and she's suprised that the band she loves is completely unknown... she's a huge fan but she can't hear her favourite song on the radio because nobody there knows the band. So she makes a copy of the song, sends it to the local radio station that on her request play the song.... and thousands of people hear it and request the same song... the word start spreading... people record the song from the radio and ask their friends "have you heard this?"
It is getting big, so much so that the original record lable hear about it and decide to lauch it in that city. As a result, the band started to make loads of money and made concerts worlwide and became famous.
The girl made a copy and the radio station played it and the band got huge benefits even when they were never asked and the record label never knew about it till people took an interest on it.

Is that wrong?

Yes it is. You seem to follow a principle that it's not wrong as long as the outcome is good. But let me ask you... if a person A pushes a person B from a cliff and person B happens to fall down safely and not get hurt, moreover he happens to land on a lost $100 bill and becomes $100 richer due to person's A push; does that make pushing people off the cliff right?

I simply believe that there are positive aspects to file sharing, and these outweigh the negative ones.

I believe so too, but still think it's wrong to do so.

[mugloch]

I see piracy and file sharing as two separate things. Piracy is someone taking my work, copying it, and selling it for a profit. This is causing real and measurable loss. File sharing is someone liking my work enough that they decided to share it with the world. Perhaps it causes a loss in sales, perhaps a gain, there is simply no way to know. But looking at the two industries that are supposedly hardest hit by all of this, they seem to be doing fine. So, until someone can show some objective evidence of how file sharing is doing any significant damage I'm going to take the position that the benefits outweigh the costs.

I agree entirely with this.

@r937, to say say that both are "stealing" is simply wrong, it's applying the logic of tangible goods to intangibles: and I'm sure this part of the argument has come up already in this thread.

Mike Masnick, Bill Patry (and another author who's name escapes me) have written extensively about this reflex to call something "stealing/theft" because someone has something of yours without your permission. Blaise Alleyne sums it up better than me.

http://blaise.ca/blog/2010/01/25/cop...heft-metaphor/