[Note: This is an E-mail I wrote to someone who opposed the theme of my "The Case for File Swapping" essay, after I posted it to a writers mailing list I'm a member of. Later on you can find his response along with my comments on why it is wrong. I should note that he apparently did not read the essay.] On Sunday 23 October 2005 13:23, [REMOVED] wrote: > Shlomi Fish wrote: > >Check: > > > >http://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/case-for-file-swapping/ > > > >for a new essay I wrote titled "The Case for File-Swapping". > > > >Comments, suggestions, corrections and flames are welcome. > > > >Regards, > > > > Shlomi Fish > > The argument against file-swapping: There was an independant > singer-songwriter in Vancouver who scrimped and saved so she could > record a decent cd of her work in a good studio. She was not signed to a > "media company." > When the album was done, and while the cd was being pressed, someone > along the way uploaded the files to the internet where the recording was > a great success Over 2 million copies of it were downloaded before the > cd's were even packaged and boxed. Consequently, she couldn't sell the > discs, since the public could get it for free on line. How do you know? She could have tried to sell the CDs, and they may have sold very well. Like I mentioned there, the U.S. band Wilco placed the contents of a CD online, and later sold it and it became a best-selling CD. Furthermore, she could have then went on to have a series of live concerts based on the CD, which also many people would have wanted to see based on the CD's popularity. > I do know that we lost nearly a generation of music which might have > been created if Creedence Clearwater Revival hadn't quit as a band > because they made no money from their albums. Admittedly, Fontana > Records ripped them off, not file-swappers, but the point is that they > were not rewarded for their creativity. Like I said, artists can still charge for commercial copies of their songs (CDs sold in Music stores, mp3s downloaded from online stores, etc.) In fact they can leverage the Internet to cut the middle man. > > Here's the entire basis for national and international copyright law. > 1: Copyright, the right to make copies, is inherent from the moment of > creation: That means only you can make copies of anything which is > deemed an act of creation, be it a story, a song, an image, sculpture, > photograph, printed circuit board (which is in reality a graphic image) > or software. . > 2: You can assign certain of those rights to others if you wish. This > includes the publication, manufacture, and distribution of (in this cas) > recordings. Yes, but assuming the work is in the public, you cannot prevent its non-commercial distribution. > If you haven't assigned those rights, no-one is allowed by law to make > more than one copy for their own use (ie, to make a casette tape or load > them as MP3's on your iPod or the like.) You can make as many copies as you wish for your own use - as backups, as mp3's to put on your computer, as mp3's for your recordings, etc. You can also non-commercially distribute them to your friends. > > If you hear a person's work and appreciate it enough that you want the > recording, shouldn't you pay for it? You are not obliged to do it by Ethics. > To do otherwise is to not treat > people the same as you wish to be treated ("Do Unto Others As You Would > Have Them Treat You." The Sermon on the Mount, AKA, the Golden Rule. I don't understand. I don't care if people re-distribute and duplicate my public artworks. They can do it as much as they wish. So, why shouldn't I do the same for other people's artworks. > Basically, pirating recordings is disrespectful of the person whose work > has been recorded. They've worked very hard to get to that point, and > deserve whatever rewards they are due for that effort. Right. Selling Pirated CDs in music stores is illegal and unethical, because these persons may have prevented non-commercial use. But copying a CD to your friend, or sharing it over the Internet is perfectly fine. > To try to justify file-swapping because it prevents some media company > from making their percentage of the revenue is, basically, quite juvenile. > Juvenile. > And it is theft. > I believe that crime is mentioned in a few old books. > The Torah, The Old Testament, The Koran, etc. It's not theft. Indeed, there was a strong opposition to stealing since antiquity (Hamorabbi's Laws, etc.). However it was for physical, tangible property: land, houses, precious metals, livestock, tools, food, etc. All things that have a physical existence and require time and effort to produce each unit of. On the other hand, with artworks, you can easily duplicate an infinite copies at virtually no cost. Furthermore, the original is not harmed in any way. So copying such an artwork non-commercially is not "theft". The ancient laws referred to the acts of taking tangible property without permission while leaving the rightful owner with one less copy of it. In ancient times, the texts that were made available to the public were freely distributable, and although sometimes people charged for making one copy (which was a long process that required hard work), that copy was then also freely distributable. Copyrights emerged only at post-Renaissance when making copies of works became extremely cheap, and there was a need to protect the commercial interests of the authors. > If you think theft is justified because you happen to be stealing from > Warner Records or Sony, I never justified stealing from the rich or extremely rich. > then it is okay for someone to steal your car, > your house, your laptop, the software development projects you've spent > months working on, or whatever, and you shouldn't complain when or if > that happens. Theft is theft. Like I said before and in the article, I never justified theft and that non-commercial distribution of copies of artworks is not theft. Regards, Shlomi Fish --------------------------------------------------------------------- Shlomi Fish shlomif@ELIDED Homepage: http://www.shlomifish.org/ 95% of the programmers consider 95% of the code they did not write, in the bottom 5%. ========================================================================= His response was: >>I don't understand. I don't care if people re-distribute and duplicate my >>public artworks. They can do it as much as they wish. So, why shouldn't I >>do the same for other people's artworks. >> >> >> If the person creating the work is contributing it to the "Creative Commons," as you imply you are doing, then fine. If not, then you shouldn't re-distribute other peoples works, at least in a form that can permit the work being copied. Broadcasting in the form of internet radio is okay, since that is the same as inviting your friends over to listen to music at your house, but if you are collecting advertising revenue or donations for operating the internet radio you should pay the annual broadcast licencing fee to the appropriate performing rights association in you jurisdiction. . <<< My response: but I've distributed all my public work under such licenses, and don't care if people make non-commercial copies of them. So the "Don't do unto others, what you don't want others to do to you" is false. As far as I'm concerned, people can make as many non-commercial copies as they like. >>> >>>To try to justify file-swapping because it prevents some media company >>>from making their percentage of the revenue is, basically, quite >>>juvenile. Juvenile. >>> >>>And it is theft. >>>I believe that crime is mentioned in a few old books. >>>The Torah, The Old Testament, The Koran, etc. >>> >>> >>It's not theft. Indeed, there was a strong opposition to stealing since >>antiquity (Hamorabbi's Laws, etc.). However it was for physical, tangible >>property: land, houses, precious metals, livestock, tools, food, etc. All >>things that have a physical existence and require time and effort to >>produce each unit of. >> >> Land, houses, livestock, etc. are " tangible property." Works of the artistic and creative imagination are "intellectual property." That is why the bureau for recording and registering copyrights in Canada is entitles The Bureau of Intellectual Property. <<<<<< My response: As I noted in my essay in http://xrl.us/h8sq the term "Intellectual Property" is misleading, harmful and not really equivalent to tangible property. (I link to an even more comprehensive resource about it). It has become quite common recently, but only because the holders of copyright, patents, trademarks, etc. are using it to rationalize irrational actions based on it. Have you actually read the essay before you commented? >>>