PDFS--Of the WotC Court Case

[Storm Raven]

PS: (Pssst! If you go into any library, you'll see photocopy machines! You must destroy all of them for the moral health of humanity!)

Libraries (in the U.S. at least) are supposed to take steps so that photocopier use by patrons doesn't exceed the bounds of fair use. See 17 U.S.C. § 108.

 

[Cadfan]

That's a good point. I'll give them a critical look. Part of my job is evaluating studies to screen for special interest bias so this should be interesting.

Presuming its the "german students" study that was so big and well known, its not so much that the study is "biased" per se. Its more that the study investigates whether short term (a few month long) increase in the availability and rate of music downloads is correlated with short term variation in music sales. And then it extrapolates from that to make claims about the overall extent to which music downloading affects music sales.

1. Its not clear to me that short term variation in the rate of music downloads versus the rate of music sales is actually a good base from which to extrapolate information about the overall effect of music piracy on music sales. To give you an example, suppose that I could prove that for three months out of the year sales of music on CD spike to a high point. I then prove to you that sales of vinyl barely moved at all during this time period, and argued that the availability of music on CD therefore has no effect and has had no effect on the sales of vinyl. That would be kind of a dumb argument, wouldn't it? The purchasers of CDs have already shifted from vinyl to CD, and there's little reason to think that they're regularly choosing between CDs and vinyl on a purchase by purchase basis. The delta effect of sales of CDs on sales of vinyl already happened, and now we're dealing with a stable environment in which the new media has already crushed the old one, and variations in the new media take place without causing further effect. Music downloading could be the same way- the fact that music downloaders do more of it in certain months could have minimal effect on whether they use alternatives. It could be simple time shifting.

2. The author is affiliated with Cato. I'm not an expert on music retail. But in my own field, I have a degree of expertise, and I am familiar with Cato's publications. There's about a 65% chance that a Cato publication will be utterly moronic drivel. There's also about a 35% chance that it will be an intelligent and worthwhile investigation of an area of public policy that is too often neglected. Cato, I am afraid, simply hasn't got very good quality control. I am not able to judge the quality of this publication any further than I already have, but the Cato affiliation does raise questions. They've tried to sell me a line before, so I try to be careful.

 

[Voadam]

No, you're not.

Do you honestly not see my point?

I don't think so. Its not making sense to me, but I'll take a shot at it. I'm trying to see specifically where the wrongness is.

The company makes an expensive book. Someone buys it and makes it available. Someone else doesn't want to pay the retail price of the book and gets the book without paying retail for it. You said this is wrong.

My analysis though is:

If the availability is sharing, it is not wrong.

If the availability is giving it as a gift it is not wrong.

If the availability is second hand sale in which the company does not profit then still it is not wrong.

The legal wrong is if the availability is copying and distribution in an infringing manner.

In each case the second person gets the book without paying the company, and the first three are legal and not wrong manners of doing so.

If it was theft, then the person being stolen from would be legally wronged, but not the company (even if the company lost a potential sale to the thief).

If it is copywrite infringement the legal harm is to the company's copywrite rights.

 

[pedr]

These threads are fascinating.

I think we need to distinguish between the moral and the legal arguments, otherwise everyone gets very confused.

As mentioned, it cannot be immoral to obtain ideas from a work subject to copyright without compensating the copyright owner (hereafter: author). This actually leaves me wondering what it is that is morally wrong about copyright infringement.

It is also worth noting that - at least as enforced - in most jurisdictions in the world, copyright infringment is an issue of private law. The wronged party can sue for the damages caused by the infringement. The US has taken steps to make it quasi-penal: the prevalence of punitive damages in US tort law makes very little sense to me - but it's unusual in this. In most jurisdictions, copyright infringement is as 'wrong' as breaking a contract. And plenty of legal economists will tell you that often the right thing to do is to is to break a contract, and pay the damages. The law can tell us very little about the morality of copyright (which isn't surprising, given how recent an idea copyright is).

Copyright also only protects the expression, and the right to develop works from that expression. This is why the OSRIC-like products are (probably) non-infringing, and why recipes are not copyrightable. Coca Cola have to use trade secret laws to protect their ingredients and forumlae. Copyright would not help them at all.

Conflating copyright infringement and theft does many undesirable things. It suggests that the law has assigned a moral status to infringement. It suggests that copyright infringement is obviously criminal. And it devalues the 'theft' concept, which is depriving another of a thing which they are entitled to possess and enjoy. Infringment does not affect the copyright at all.

Though NB: copying a book out by hand is just as much copyright infringement as using a photocopier or scanner, unless fair use/fair dealing or a license allows it.

In short (and this goes for games, films, music, etc alike) I'm firmly convinced that private law is entirely suitable to deal with copyright infringment. Copyright owners whose rights are infrigned ought to be entitled to recover their actual, provable damages, i.e. the actual, provable amount of revenue they lost due to unauthorised copying. And no more.

 

[Storm Raven]

In short (and this goes for games, films, music, etc alike) I'm firmly convinced that private law is entirely suitable to deal with copyright infringment. Copyright owners whose rights are infrigned ought to be entitled to recover their actual, provable damages, i.e. the actual, provable amount of revenue they lost due to unauthorised copying. And no more.

This, in practice, is almost impossible to prove. In other words, if this is the standard of recovery for copyright infringement, then you may as well abolish copyright so we can return to the era of patron provided funding for artistic endeavors.

This is why the law (in the U.S. and most other countries) provides for statutory damages - all the copyright holder has to do is prove copying, and the law presumes a certain level of damages. The damages are not merely to compensate the copyright holder, but to discourage the infringer, and placing the additional burden of proving "actual, provable damages" (which would be impossible in almost all cases) would prevent the public policy objectives of the copyright law from being fulfilled.

 

[Storm Raven]

My analysis though is:

If the availability is sharing, it is not wrong.

If the availability is giving it as a gift it is not wrong.

If the availability is second hand sale in which the company does not profit then still it is not wrong.

The common thread through all of this is that you have not expanded the volume of material on the market. You take your copy of a book to the second hand store, you lose access to the material except as your memory is good enough to retain it in your mind. If you want to (or need to) refresh your memory, you have to reacquire a copy. The same is true if you lend a book to a friend. During the time he has access to the material, you don't, and vice versa.

The gift giving scenario doesn't even make sense in this context. You buy the book, you give it away. Unless you are a jerk who reads a book before giving it as a gift, you didn't even access the copyrighted material before transferring ownership.

In all of these cases, the author of the work has made one sale, and one person has access to the work at any given time. If two people want to have the book, then they both need to get a copy.

The legal wrong is if the availability is copying and distribution in an infringing manner.

That would be the definition of copyright. When you copy the book and give it away, you are creating an additional permanent record of the work, so that multiple people could have access to it simultaneously. This is the wrong. The author makes 100 copies (hypothetically) and prices his book on that basis. You make 100 copies, and undercut him. He loses his shirt trying to sell the work he made, even if you gained nothing (i.e. even if you gave it away free). The harm is in expanding the volume available to the market without compensating the copyright holder.

 

[Deimodius]

Here's a thought...

When you buy a computer program, for example the Windows OS, or a computer game, generally (depending on the EULA) you are only allowed to install ONE copy of the program on ONE machine at any one time. You can move it to another machine, but it can't be on more than one machine at the same time. (Like I said, some EULAs allow for multiple installation, most don't).

This would be like the argument above that If you buy the book and lend it to a friend you don't have access to it while he/she has it.

 

[Nifft]

Here's a thought...

When you buy a computer program, for example the Windows OS, or a computer game, generally (depending on the EULA) you are only allowed to install ONE copy of the program on ONE machine at any one time. You can move it to another machine, but it can't be on more than one machine at the same time. (Like I said, some EULAs allow for multiple installation, most don't).

This would be like the argument above that If you buy the book and lend it to a friend you don't have access to it while he/she has it.

EULAs are a grey area of the law. They don't necessarily do anything. Also, they have nothing to do with books, so considering them will only confuse this issue further.

So let's not consider them.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Mistwell]

EULAs are a grey area of the law. They don't necessarily do anything. Also, they have nothing to do with books, so considering them will only confuse this issue further.

So let's not consider them.

Cheers, -- N

First, right now a majority of Federal Court districts find EULAs to be legitimate and enforceable. A minority of circuits disagree, and eventually the issue may be resolved by the USSC. So, while they do not "necessarily" do anything, they probably do, and in most US States they do.

Second, they are a related field with a similar problem. It's a fair topic for discussion. So, we should consider them.

 

[pawsplay]

I'm really tired of people denying that they aren't downloading libraries of books, music and movies from the internet so they can play without paying.

It must be exhausting to be you. Certainly, there are no pirated books, music, or movies on my hard drive, apart from MP3's of "Fett's Vett," "Jesus Was Way Cool," and "Aunty Mabel." As "Aunty Mabel," formerly generally unavailable in the US, is now available as an MP3 download on Amazon these day, I suppose I should shell out the $0.89.