Jonny Nexus said:
I suppose what I'm saying is that if I write a story, I have a really strong emotional feeling/belief that I own it. I don't see it as "information" that I "discovered", I see it as a "thing" that I created.
Now that's regardless of the law. That's just how I feel.
And regardless of privacy, I feel that because it's mine, I have the right to say who can see it. I think - for example - that I would have the right to give you a copy of my story, but tell you that I don't want you to give copies and to other people. (And if you're not happy with that, then you can say "no thank you" and not accept the copy).
I hope this isn't too political, but here goes. I will speak only for US law, since that is where I live and that is the law I am familiar with. Obviously, different regions of the world have slightly different laws...
Copyright is just that - the right to control the creation of "copies" (including "derivative works"). That's all it is. Things get tough because we use "copy" as both a verb and a noun and sometimes the noun usage is unclear - if I say I have a copy of a book (for instance), it is not clear whether I mean a single instance of a physical book printed with approval of the copyright holder or a (probably illegal) xeroxed copy, loose-leaf of the same.
To help us keep track of the distinction, I will use copy(a) and copy(b) to describe nouns where copy(a) is used in the sense of a "professionally created and distributed" copy and copy(b) is used in the sense of something created by copying copy(a).
Copyright law does not give the holder
any rights as to the disposition or use of any copy(a) except prohibiting (in most cases; there are exceptions) the creation of a copy(b) of copy(a).
This means I can go to Amazon.com and buy a book, a CD, a DVD, a software package, or download an e-book. In each of these instances, I legally receive a copy(a) of the material. What I do with that material is completely up to me, so long as I do not use it to create a copy(b) - and even then, I may be allowed to. If I want to use the book as a doorstop for my bathroom, I can do that. If I want to use the CD as a frisbee, I can do that. If I want to give the DVD to my friend, I can do that. If I want to sell the software package (unopened) to someone over E-bay, I can do that.
More relevant to the discussion at hand - if I want to put the CD in my CD deck and play it in a random order, rather than the track order, I can do that. If I want to read the book back-to-front, I can do that.
I think the creators' emotions come into play at this point - you wrote a great murder mystery and I'm SPOILING it by reading it back to front! How DARE I do such a thing! Or worse, I'm not even reading it, I'm using it as a doorstop! How could I have such audacity! I'm clearly a heathen! I'm EEEEVIL!
Guess what... when I paid money for that copy(a), you gave up all right as to how I use it, so long as I do not make a copy(b) of it.
Of course, now we have technological measures in place, backed by the teeth of law, that are giving content creators control that they never had before - and I firmly believe "shouldn't have at all." For instance, my in-laws recently purchased a copy(a) of "Shark Tale" on DVD. When you put the DVD into the DVD player, you are forced to sit through about 10 minutes of previews, because the DVD and DVD player disable the "skip" and "menu" functions. Not just the first time - EVERY time. If I accidentally bump the "eject" button, I get to sit through 10 minutes of previews AGAIN.
Why? This is analagous to a book forcibly keeping me from flipping directly past the "author's dedication" page and "prologue" in a book to start reading at Chapter 1. Or, if I stop after Chapter 2 to take a break, I have to read the author's dedication page and prologue AGAIN before going to Chapter 3.
As far as I can tell, from my reading of copyright law, Dreamworks has no right to force me to sit through their commericals under copyright law... and since I signed no contract when I purchased my DVD player... and my DVD... they have no right to control the DVD under contract law either. And yet they force me to do it anyway! Why? Because the technology of DVD players allows them to grab these "extra rights" that basic law does not grant them.
Emotionally, they want the right to display
their work in the way they want it displayed (and let's be honest here, in the case of commercials, they want to keep burning their freakin' movies into my skull - or more likely, into my kids' skulls - there's no artistic integrity at stake there, only a raw money grab). But they don't have the moral right to do it, nor do they (under existing law) have the legal right to do it... so they make an end run around morals and legality to slip it in anyway. I believe it is asbolutely unethical to act in this fashion - that is, to attempt to take away my "right" to dispose of the copy(a) and view it as I choose.
In other words, DVD studios are acting unethically when they attempt to exercise power they are not entitled to by law. Which leads to this question: is it unethical for me, in turn, to modify my DVD player to ignore the "lock" signals and/or to rip/burn a copy(b) which does not include the "lock" signals in order solely to restore my own use of those rights that were mine to begin with?
You're probably wondering how all of this relates to piracy at this point... it doesn't, exactly, except to point out to you that once you sell/give a copy(a) to someone else, absent a separate contract, you lose control of that copy(a). Emotionally, you don't like that. But that's what happens. In your specific example, you mentioned that "you would give me a copy and that I would agree not to give copies to other people." But you made no prohibition against me taking that copy(a) you gave me and giving (not copying it) to someone else. Would you be mad if I took the original stack of papers and loaned it to my friend to read? And if he loaned it to his friend? And so on, and so on, provided no copy(b) was made of your copy(a)? Over infinite time, the result is the same... everyone reads your stuff (oh, yeah, and nobody pays you for a second copy)!
Anyway, getting back on track as to piracy... I'm of two minds here. Obviously, I'm a PDF publisher, so I do keep an eye out for "pirated" copies of my stuff... not so much to get upset about it (it's kind of like getting upset at the sky for raining when I planned a picnic - there's nothing I could do to stop it and nothing I can do to fix the current problem; all I can do is adjust for the future) as to ask the piraters (when I find them) to please stop. I don't threaten legal action, I just ask them (nicely) not to do it as a favor to me. Usually they ignore me, but at least I try.
However, I feel that the "copyright cartel" on the whole has grossly violated the original social contract that goes with copyright. Copyright was NOT intended as a means to enrich the individual (or corporate entity); rather, it was intended as a means to enrich society by giving society access to information ("
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" is the clause of the Constitution that justifies the creation of copyright in the first place - not "to enrich the creators of copyrighted material" - and the Constitution states that these should be "for limited times").
I have heard it said that when framing laws, you should not ask, "what will the current political entity (presumably benign) do with this power?" but rather "what kind of havoc could the biggest rat bastard on earth do if given this power" on the theory that even if things are controlled by a benign entity at present, eventually the biggest rat bastard on earth is going to get his hands on it. Copyright is intended as a balance between the greedy rat bastard creators (who want people to pay, preferably through the nose and in perpetuity) and the greedy rat bastard masses (who want it all for free as in beer and as in speech and want it now). Obviously, we can't have NO copyright or the greedy rat bastard creators will have no incentive to create in the first place. On the other hand, we can't have perpetual copyright, either, because the greedy rat bastard masses won't tolerate that.
In the words of Lord Thomas Macauley in Britain's house of commons in 1841 (link:
http://yarchive.net/macaulay/copyright.html ) - I use him because he's more eloquent than I:
"It is good that authors should be remunerated, and the least exceptionable way of remunerating them is by a monopoly. Yet monopoly is evil. For the sake of the good we must submit to the evil: but the evil ought not to last a day longer than is necessary for the purpose of securing the good"
We establish copyright in order to make sure that authors get justly renumerated for their works. However, copyright in and of itself establishes a monopoly, and monopolies are, for the most part, evil (not because they are inherently evil, but because a monopoly gives all power over a certain thing to one entity, and absolute power tends to corrupt).
As to arguing about whether information is property, I agree with Macauley: "It is not necessary to go, on the present occasion, into a metaphysical inquiry about the origin of the right of property; and certainly nothing but the strongest necessity would lead me to discuss a subject so likely to be distasteful to the House. I agree, I own, with Paley in thinking that
property is the creature of the law, and that the law which creates property can be defended only on this ground, that it is a law beneficial to mankind." After all, in terms of physical property, we can argue about scarcity, but without laws, the "natural limits" of the property one can attain is simply that which you can hang on to and/or defend by physical force and that's not much.
Macauley brilliantly sums up copyright in this way:
"The question of copyright, Sir, like most questions of civil prudence, is neither black nor white, but grey. The system of copyright has great advantages and great disadvantages; and it is our business to ascertain what these are, and then to make an arrangement under which the advantages may be as far as possible secured, and the disadvantages as far as possible excluded.
...
The principle of copyright is this. It is a tax on readers for the purpose of giving a bounty to writers. The tax is an exceedingly bad one; it is a tax on one of the most innocent and most salutary of human pleasures; and never let us forget, that a tax on innocent pleasures is a premium on vicious pleasures. I admit, however, the necessity of giving a bounty to genius and learning. In order to give such a bounty, I willingly submit even to this severe and burdensome tax."
And with considerable foresight, has this to say:
I will only say this, that if the measure before us should pass (lengthening copyright from 28 to 60 years), and should produce one-tenth part of the evil which it is calculated to produce, and which I fully expect it to produce, there will soon be a remedy, though of a very objectionable kind. Just as the absurd acts which prohibited the sale of game were virtually repealed by the poacher, just as many absurd revenue acts have been virtually repealed by the smuggler, so will this law be virtually repealed by piratical booksellers.
At present the holder of copyright has the public feeling on his side. Those who invade copyright are regarded as knaves who take the bread out of the mouths of deserving men. Everybody is well pleased to see them restrained by the law, and compelled to refund their ill-gotten gains.
...
Pass this law: and that feeling is at an end. Men very different from the present race of piratical booksellers will soon infringe this intolerable monopoly. Great masses of capital will be constantly employed in the violation of the law. Every art will be employed to evade legal pursuit; and the whole nation will be in the plot.
...
Remember too that, when once it ceases to be considered as wrong and discreditable to invade literary property, no person can say where the invasion will stop. The public seldom makes nice distinctions. The wholesome copyright which now exists will share in the disgrace and danger of the new copyright which you are about to create. And you will find that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the works of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living.
I personally think a lot of the problem stems from the fact that, by and large, by continually lobbying to extend and extend and extend and extend copyright, "big business" (and here I am thinking of Disney, the RIAA, and the MPAA) has mucked things up as far as copyright goes - for everyone. People are pissed at "the man" for lengthening copyright to, essentially, perpetuity (my *father* hasn't seen anything fall out of copyright in *his* lifetime, and I don't honestly expect to see anything enter the public domain in 2018... I fully expect lobbying for yet another extension).
The anger that people feel at "The Man" (in the big media congolomerates) then poisons their feelings toward RPG companies, too. Yes, RPG companies are small outfits. Yes, they are, for the most part, manned with good people. But "The wholesome copyright... (shares) in the disgrace and danger of the new copyright" because "the public seldom makes nice distinctions."
Those who infringe copyright of the little guy do so because the whole copyright concept has been poisoned by the "big guy." And you know, I can hardly blame them. Even though I myself have tried to be respectful and open with my work (heck, all my text except the titles of my works, my name and email address are 100% OGC), I can still get a sense of... "hey, copyright holders broke the contract first by getting extension after extension, by getting huge and ridiculously harsh penalties (a typical file-sharer with 200 files on his share directory is liable for more damages and jail time than a serial murderer), and changing copyright from a civil matter to a criminal matter (so big companies don't have to spend their own money pursuing folks; instead, they can spend the governement's money by reporting to the FBI or police)... since you broke your side of the bargain, why should we be expected to keep ours?"
I'm not saying it's right (two wrongs don't make a right). I'm not saying it's properly directed (again, I think it's misdirected anger in the case of RPG publishers). I *am* saying there are some darn good arguments that ethically, the "pirates" are really no worse off than big-time copyright interests (though most RPG publishers have a better "high horse" to stand on). After all, I think big-time copyright interests have trampled the social contract and original purpose of copyright, and having watched them do that, who's to blame the masses for disrespecting copyright altogether? After all, if one side doesn't respect the contract, why should the other side honor it?
That my copyrighted stuff happens to get caught up in the resulting explosion is unfortunate (yes, I didn't trample copyright by demanding extensions, and my stuff is still pretty new, but if "all copyright is to be ignored" I can't expect them to treat me any different just because I'm nice and my stuff is new), but I don't place
all the blame on the filesharers, either. If we had "Founding Father" copyright, everything published before, what, 1991 would be in the public domain anyway (except stuff that had been renewed, but even that would only go back to 1977)! That would be a boatload of stuff that people love that would be legally out there, and I think would
drastically reduce the amount of bad feelings we see toward the institution of copyright today.
"The whole nation
is in on the plot." Look at the sheer numbers on P2P networks. Look at how many people have rip/mixed/burned. Look at how piracy is bringing the copyright industry down - or at least forcing them to drastically change their business model (iTunes, anyone). Slowly, perhaps, but it's happening.
The problem is not necessarily the price point on any given book, but rather the attitude in general towards copyright. Clearly, if the whole nation is in on the plot, it's not a reflection of the price of a single book, but rather on the terms of copyright as a whole. I really doubt piracy will go away, no matter WHAT people do, DRM or otherwise, until we see huge and massive copyright reforms that slant things much more favorably toward the public and away from the copyright holder. Given the amount of money copyright holders spend on lobbying, that means "never."
I happen to think the piracy of RPG books is a symptom of a much larger problem. That's why I don't worry myself overmuch about it... the problem, as I see it, is a social/political one - not a technological one - and truly out of my control as a publisher.
--The Sigil
