Re: when did piracy/theft become expression of freedom

[Benjamin Kreuter <ben.kreuter () gmail com>]

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On Sat, 28 Jan 2012 23:49:09 +0100
Christian Sciberras <uuf6429 () gmail com> wrote:

> That has always been viewed from the consumer perspective.

Copyrights exist for consumers, at least according to the US
constitution:

"The Congress shall have the Power...To promote the Progress of Science
and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and
Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and
Discoveries..."

Copyrights do not exist for the benefit of producers; that is only a
means to an end.  The point of the copyright system is to benefit the
general public.

 
> If you look at it from the producers' perspective, you'll see their
> right to withhold their creative
> content until you pay something back.

...which is not the same as their right to prevent you from making
copies of their work.
 
> Another thing to note, if artists, software companies etc were so
> nice to actually want
> to give all this stuff for free, I'm pretty sure no one is forcing
> them to sell their content.
> So don't talk about the "they're not loosing anything" bullshit to me.

Then tell me what they lost.  Can you prove that someone who downloaded
a song would have spent money on the song if it had not been available
for download?  The argument that losses are incurred for every download
has always been baseless and always will be.

Really though, what difference does it make if copyright industries are
losing money?  When last I checked, the stagecoach industry lost lots
of money when the automobile was invented.  Would you claim that people
were stealing from stagecoach drivers by failing to support that
industry and instead using their cars?  Are you crying foul when people
use digital cameras and incur losses for the film industry?  Who was
stealing from all those sheet music copyists and printers who lost
their jobs because of the recording industry?

Industries need to adapt to the times, or else they die.  What makes
recording, movie production, etc. so special?

- -- Ben


- -- 
Benjamin R Kreuter
UVA Computer Science
brk7bx () virginia edu

- --

"If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there
will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public
opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even
if laws exist to protect them." - George Orwell
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