Copyright Violation Is Not Theft
How the publishers have warped the government for profit
Copyright violation is not theft. This is another example of using a words connotations to imply an act is worse than it really is. In another recent article I attacked the use of the phrase, “climate change denier”, as being dishonest in that the implication was that someone who was honestly sceptical about climate change was being implicitly grouped with holocaust deniers. The left learns fast as this is what they pointed out Bush did with Iraq and terrorism related to 9/11. Theft is another term that has been hijacked by corporations to describe copyright violations in such a way as to imply the moral equivalence of theft.
First the definition of theft requires stealing. The main reason stealing is considered immoral is that one person is taking something from someone else; by doing so the first person is harming the second in a real measurable way. With copyright violation at least in the digital sense described in this article the “property” is not stolen but copied. In a physical sense this would be the same as if someone invented a device that acted like a 3d photo copier. One could point the device at anything and instantly create a copy. If someone were to come to your house and create a copy of your couch for their own that would not be theft. That might hurt the company that makes the couches but it would in no way harm the owner of the couch. When compared to the physical reality of theft copyright violation obviously does not fit.
Intellectual property is a tricky subject and the issues surrounding it and copyright are complex and can be argued intelligently without resorting to semantic propaganda. Personally I believe that copyrights and patents should be limited to the original term defined in H. R. 10 in 1790. The original term of copyright was for 14 years with a possible extension of 14 years. The idea behind copyright was that by giving authors full profits from their work for a period of time the amount of creative work in the public domain would increase.
The idea of public domain has almost been forgotten. Copyright is now more for corporations than for the benefit of the public domain. The Sonny Bono copyright extension act extended copyright to the life of the author plus 70 years. This includes texts on things like computer programming, science, and popular culture that will be totally useless and outdated before they ever get the opportunity to wind up in the public domain. Copyright extensions have been pushed by artists and corporations such as Disney(c) that have hijacked the system to the detriment of the public.
The latest insult to the intended function of they copyright system is the Digital Millennium Copyright act. This monstrosity allows companies to not only copyright and encrypt/DRM(Digital Rights management) products but it makes it illegal to crack DRM and share the tools to do so. This could be used to extend sole possession of a work beyond even the term in copyright law. The original constitutional intent behind copyright was not to enrich authors or publishers but to enrich the public domain. The publishing interests have hijacked the system to enforce an illusory market for goods that cost nothing to reproduce. This hijacking has now moved even into the moral underpinnings of our society by trying to equate copyright violations with theft.
Copyright unlike property ownership is not a basic right in the United States. It's not a natural right defined in the declaration of independence and it's not a moral issue historically in our culture. Prior to the printing press authors had no say whatsoever about who copied their works. If one had the money to hire a scribe one could copy anything without guilt or worry. Copyright is a new concept, the original intent behind the idea was a good one but without the benefit to the public the only people copyright benefits are the publishers.
It is not the governments place to create artificial markets unless it creates a public benefit. It is not the publishers place to define morality in our culture by hijacking the language for their benefit. Copyright violation is not theft. It may be illegal, and depending on your view immoral but it is not theft. What is immoral in my opinion is the “theft” from the public domain these copyright extensions exact on the public because unlike individual copyright violation the legally sanctioned “theft” from the public domain takes something from us all.
Resources:
www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1a.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Bono
First the definition of theft requires stealing. The main reason stealing is considered immoral is that one person is taking something from someone else; by doing so the first person is harming the second in a real measurable way. With copyright violation at least in the digital sense described in this article the “property” is not stolen but copied. In a physical sense this would be the same as if someone invented a device that acted like a 3d photo copier. One could point the device at anything and instantly create a copy. If someone were to come to your house and create a copy of your couch for their own that would not be theft. That might hurt the company that makes the couches but it would in no way harm the owner of the couch. When compared to the physical reality of theft copyright violation obviously does not fit.
Intellectual property is a tricky subject and the issues surrounding it and copyright are complex and can be argued intelligently without resorting to semantic propaganda. Personally I believe that copyrights and patents should be limited to the original term defined in H. R. 10 in 1790. The original term of copyright was for 14 years with a possible extension of 14 years. The idea behind copyright was that by giving authors full profits from their work for a period of time the amount of creative work in the public domain would increase.
The idea of public domain has almost been forgotten. Copyright is now more for corporations than for the benefit of the public domain. The Sonny Bono copyright extension act extended copyright to the life of the author plus 70 years. This includes texts on things like computer programming, science, and popular culture that will be totally useless and outdated before they ever get the opportunity to wind up in the public domain. Copyright extensions have been pushed by artists and corporations such as Disney(c) that have hijacked the system to the detriment of the public.
The latest insult to the intended function of they copyright system is the Digital Millennium Copyright act. This monstrosity allows companies to not only copyright and encrypt/DRM(Digital Rights management) products but it makes it illegal to crack DRM and share the tools to do so. This could be used to extend sole possession of a work beyond even the term in copyright law. The original constitutional intent behind copyright was not to enrich authors or publishers but to enrich the public domain. The publishing interests have hijacked the system to enforce an illusory market for goods that cost nothing to reproduce. This hijacking has now moved even into the moral underpinnings of our society by trying to equate copyright violations with theft.
Copyright unlike property ownership is not a basic right in the United States. It's not a natural right defined in the declaration of independence and it's not a moral issue historically in our culture. Prior to the printing press authors had no say whatsoever about who copied their works. If one had the money to hire a scribe one could copy anything without guilt or worry. Copyright is a new concept, the original intent behind the idea was a good one but without the benefit to the public the only people copyright benefits are the publishers.
It is not the governments place to create artificial markets unless it creates a public benefit. It is not the publishers place to define morality in our culture by hijacking the language for their benefit. Copyright violation is not theft. It may be illegal, and depending on your view immoral but it is not theft. What is immoral in my opinion is the “theft” from the public domain these copyright extensions exact on the public because unlike individual copyright violation the legally sanctioned “theft” from the public domain takes something from us all.
Resources:
www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1a.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Bono