Neutrality of the Internet

[Socrates]

Note that I am only talking about work that is published, ie. made available to the public. Secret attack plans are out of scope because they are not published. Same goes for car designs: you sell cars, not car designs, which are not meant to be published. So yeah, this is fraud and is meant to be.
Lent heavily from a painting is different: said painting is published in the first place. Plagiarism would occur if you published a painting without making any reference to the original work. The original work is not taken away, but there is infrigement on a basic of producing stuff: you claim some work as your own. This is called counterfeiting. Note that this is the case only if you publish the new work. If you copy the original work for your own good only, maybe modify it somewhat, but keep it for you, this is not counterfeiting.

I say all of this is far from word nitpicking.

[ProPain]

Plagiarism, counterfeiting, theft, all different legal terms to describe ways to take some form of value from their owners against their will. I'm not interested in the legal side but the moral side while you try to hide behind a legal definition. A definition that is subject to change because of the changing technology anyway.

People's time has value. You can try to deny that but it's the foundation of our economy: Most people get paid for/make a living from the time they work.

While you feel net neutrality is big thing and ISP should just be 'cable guys' (which they are not btw, ISP stand for internet service provider, which is something entirely different from a network provider.) you're opposed to 'distribution neutrality' and claim digital distribution is a valueless/worthless product/service.

Just as you are free to decide what stuff you want to pay for other people are free to decide how they offer their product/services/creative works. It's your choice not to buy a digital product just as it is a musicians choice to offer it in digital form. It's perfectly fine for you not to buy it, copying it and depriving someone from a sales opportunity is not fine. Even illegal in most countries.

Your linux example is an interesting one. Linux might be free to download but it is not free to make. People are investing time and money to continue to develop this. It's THEIR choice to do this and then provide the product for free. Please note:THEIR choice.

When you copy someones digital work against their will, that's YOUR choice, not theirs. And that's wrong.


Whether or not piracy can be prevented is irrelevant. Shoplifting will always be there as well, it';s still illegal though. The fact that big publishers make money of the back of poor musicians. Irrelevant for this discussion and also I dont see how not paying them for your digital copy is helping musicians in that respect. Digital distribution even is a solution for the big publisher problem, it enables small companies, even individuals, to reach large audiences directly. This is rendering publishers (partly) obsolete, that's why they try to stop this development. Steam and app shops prove this: the amount of indie developers has never been this large.

[akots]

The only issue I have with music, movies, books etc is monopoly and sometimes double monopoly. Singer signs a contract with a recording studio which then signs a contract with a distributor. The distributor can then charge as much as he wants because of exclusivity. And this is unfair and violates antitrust legislature. Same is true for movies. I don't like theaters and I normally don't go there unless children drag me and this means, I cannot see a movie I want sometimes for a very long time.

There should always be some kind of backdoors for a reasonable fee. At least give an option to buy stuff that people want within the whole package. Aka GoT example I posted above.

With artwork it might be a bit different. You've got to go to that museum is Florence, Leipzig, St Peterburg, etc to see the picture but you can look at a photo of it in a book and have a general idea about what it is. Also, in most museums here is such thing as admission fee. I'd disregard Smithsonian because the fee is there, it is just paid by the Federal budget for everyone.

Books are available for free from public libraries which nowdays have classical music CDs as well.

[akots]

Originally Posted by Socrates

... If I just wanted to make one thing clear in this debate, this would be the following: copying a digital file is not stealing. ...

IMO, you misunderstand the object. I'd say that making a copy of a digital music file is not piracy on its own but listening to the contents is because you acquire experience. This changes your perception of the world and thus, has a material value. So, IMO, material value is assigned both to the source and to the changes in the target which is the main purpose of the source. I know, it is just feelings but nobody forces you to buy or take digital music to experience pleasure/whatever emotion it causes. You can probably experience the same emotion through other means just through daily life and there might be no monopoly on that if you look at it from different perspective.

[Darkness]

Originally Posted by akots

. I'd say that making a copy of a digital music file is not piracy on its own but listening to the contents is because you acquire experience.

IMHO this is purely semantics. The first enables the second. Both are intricately connected which makes the division between them very subjective...

[akots]

Originally Posted by Darkness

IMHO this is purely semantics. The first enables the second. Both are intricately connected which makes the division between them very subjective...

It might be not that straightforward. For example, one may fail to copy copyrighted contents to/from an Apple device without certain level of hacking. But one can listen easily by playing what is stored on one device through another (depending on specific features). IMO, it is a bit more than semantic but not really by much.

[Shabbaman]

Originally Posted by Socrates

Same goes for car designs: you sell cars, not car designs, which are not meant to be published.

You can copy a car design simply by looking at it. There's more to a car than the engine. If a chinese company starts making BMW's that exactly look like BMW's but are utter crap beneath the hood, I suspect BMW will get whopping mad.

Originally Posted by Socrates

Plagiarism would occur if you published a painting without making any reference to the original work. The original work is not taken away, but there is infrigement on a basic of producing stuff: you claim some work as your own. This is called counterfeiting. Note that this is the case only if you publish the new work. If you copy the original work for your own good only, maybe modify it somewhat, but keep it for you, this is not counterfeiting.

You are making use of some odd definitions. It must be the language barrier. Plagiarism is a central mechanic in art; most art plagiarises other art in some form (mostly called "influences" or some fancy term). Counterfeiting simply means copying: creating fake replicas. There's no intent for profit assumed with counterfeiting. If you copy a work and modify it, it's not counterfeit indeed: it's a plagiarism. Whether you keep the work or sell it is irrelevant in that aspect. If you counterfeit with the intent to sell, perhaps "forgery" would be the proper term.

Both the car design and the half-copied painting let you create something that looks good and would let you make money. You didn't put in as much effort, there was no need for insight, education or skill. Even if you're not physically taking anything away, you are hurting the creator and all people that are capable of "creation" (lazy artists).

Anyway, I didn't come up with this to talk about paintings, I wanted to illustrate why intellectual property should be respected and that breaking it is a crime. I find it to be too easy to claim that a digital copy isn't theft, forgery or whatever: it's wordplay. It's a crime of some sort, and for me it's stealing. What the worth is of what you're stealing might seem like another subject, but I don't think it is: it's free, you're not taking anything away (you do: you take away the right to service you with entertainment) so how could it be stealing? There are a lot of people paying for streaming audio. That's pretty cheap, yet it's not free. If anyone pulls it off to generate money with something that's essentially free (free to acquire, that is), is it free in the first place? I think subscribers of streaming services value the product for more than they pay for the streaming service, otherwise why would they pay for it? There are even people paying for music in itunes or other digital download platforms (a lot of them DRM free). People are paying for stuff they can get for free. Why? Well, perhaps they don't want to break the law, but I doubt that; I don't feel that as a inhibition personally (yay PTW compensation plan! Thinking of it, I still feel "the industry" owes me money), and downloading is so ridiculously easy and safe that that hardly can be a motivation for a lot of people (at least it's not for the people I know, as I don't know anyone who isn't downloading music). There seems to be a huge gap in valuation of the product. If there's a willingness to pay, I don't think you can claim it's free. At best you could place it in the same category as a tip: you know you should pay for the service, but you don't have to. Even if it's not legally wrong, at least it's morally wrong.

[Socrates]

Originally Posted by ProPain

Plagiarism, counterfeiting, theft, all different legal terms to describe ways to take some form of value from their owners against their will. I'm not interested in the legal side but the moral side while you try to hide behind a legal definition. A definition that is subject to change because of the changing technology anyway.

You are probably misjugding my attitude, but thank you to set the debate back to where it started, it will allow me to be clearer.
Regarding terms, and to answer Shabba too, I am glad they exist, so that we can name different situations. And I think I got the words right here. "Plagiat" in French, and "contrefaçon" seems to be both counterfeiting and forgery, according to Wiktionary.
I am interested in changing the legal side according to the moral side, that is the trick. More: Technology enables the moral side to stand out against the legal side. What seemed fair before now can be seen as unfair. But then, I guess everybody has his own understanding of "what is fair", so we will not necessary agree on that.

People's time has value. You can try to deny that but it's the foundation of our economy: Most people get paid for/make a living from the time they work.

I claim that charging a fixed sum for a digital download is non-sense. If you speak of value as in efforts made to create and distribute, how come you can earn twice or ten times more if twice or ten times more people buy your creation, for no added cost?
When you want to earn twice more money from concerts, what do you do? You do 2 concerts instead of 1. Or you go to a larger venue, hoping to fill it all, but then get charged for this larger venue.
With digital download, this is not necessarily the case. You can earn twice the money just by having twice more people legally download your stuff. So the value in sales is totally disconnected from the value in investment.

While you feel net neutrality is big thing and ISP should just be 'cable guys' (which they are not btw, ISP stand for internet service provider, which is something entirely different from a network provider.) you're opposed to 'distribution neutrality' and claim digital distribution is a valueless/worthless product/service.

In France they are called "Fournisseur d'accès à Internet", which means "Internet access provider". So it all depends on how it is called in your country. But one thing is sure: just like E=mc² everywhere in the Universe, ISP have the same role all over the world (in theory). BTW, recent developments in France have had historical, nationalized companies split into several entities, usually one for the business and one for the distribution. Examples: electricity, water, trains. Sadly, still not the phone. I think it is a good thing, otherwise there is conflict of interest when one company owns the cable and sells services through these cables at the same time. This is sooooo not the Internet as it was designed! In France we had this network called Minitel; owned by France Telecom, it was a basic consumer network where no innovation was possible. What ISP dream of is what we can call Minitel 2.0.
Also, I think you have understood that I make a disctinction between value as in work and value as in goods. This is precisely what has changed so much with digital copy.

Just as you are free to decide what stuff you want to pay for other people are free to decide how they offer their product/services/creative works. It's your choice not to buy a digital product just as it is a musicians choice to offer it in digital form. It's perfectly fine for you not to buy it, copying it and depriving someone from a sales opportunity is not fine. Even illegal in most countries.

I hope you will not say that "one illegal copy is one less legal buying act". Proof: I can technically, illegally download hundreds of music albums each month (and probably listen to them all, thanks akots), but I cannot buy them all. And I certainly would never do so.
BTW, it has already been proven by independent studies that the more you pirate, the more you buy.

Your linux example is an interesting one. Linux might be free to download but it is not free to make. People are investing time and money to continue to develop this. It's THEIR choice to do this and then provide the product for free. Please note:THEIR choice.

When you copy someones digital work against their will, that's YOUR choice, not theirs. And that's wrong.

My point is that everything should be that way. 15 years have passed, and no solution has been found, while there are plenty that make sense. And piracy continues... even some of you do pirate!

Whether or not piracy can be prevented is irrelevant. Shoplifting will always be there as well, it';s still illegal though. The fact that big publishers make money of the back of poor musicians. Irrelevant for this discussion and also I dont see how not paying them for your digital copy is helping musicians in that respect. Digital distribution even is a solution for the big publisher problem, it enables small companies, even individuals, to reach large audiences directly. This is rendering publishers (partly) obsolete, that's why they try to stop this development. Steam and app shops prove this: the amount of indie developers has never been this large.

Piracy cannot be prevented. It has been so widely spread, who has never pirated anything?
Plus, aside this technological evolution, I also speak about the moral side. Is it the goal of a musician to make millions? Since when is it necessary that the people help talented musicians make millions? Just like Bill Gates having what is his wealth today, why should Michael Jackson or the Beatles be so rich?
Internet is a chance for everyone in theory, but will never be if we do not change the paradigm. And that implies deep change of what we take for granted. But you are free to disagree.

[ProPain]

Indeed we have a different moral on this issue

I claim that charging a fixed sum for a digital download is non-sense. If you speak of value as in efforts made to create and distribute, how come you can earn twice or ten times more if twice or ten times more people buy your creation, for no added cost?
..... So the value in sales is totally disconnected from the value in investment.

If you think this mechanism is exclusive to digital downloads you don't understand how revenue models work. It's common for writers/musicians to receive money for every copy sold of their book/cd. Musicians also get paid every time one of their songs is played on the radio. For them this is also income without added costs. They don't print their books/cds themselves, publishers do that. And playing a song on the radio is even without added cost for the publisher.

Heaps of writers spend just as much time writing their books as J.K. Rowling needed to write a Harry Potter book. Rowling made millions, other writers are hardly making a living. Apparently some people are able to make more money for their (invested) time than others.

It's what we call scalability of a business model. The better the scalability the easier you can increase sales for decreasing costs. Books are very scalable because reprinting is cheap compared to the writing and initial work making a script print ready. Consultancy hours are not so scalable, there;s only 24 hours in a day. When you want to increase your revenue you need to raise you hourly rate or hire more consultants and become an employer.

You might feel this disconnects revenue from time investment, but that's more of a capitalism vs communism discussion. It's one of the concepts of capitalism: people will try harder when they can improve their situation/earn more money. You might not agree with this concept, but then we need to start another thread about the pros and cons of political systems.

Also, I think you have understood that I make a disctinction between value as in work and value as in goods. This is precisely what has changed so much with digital copy.

Nothing changed really. Maybe digital distribution made this more visible because digital distribution is the extreme end of scalability.

I hope you will not say that "one illegal copy is one less legal buying act".

Indeed I will not say that, I used the word 'opportunity' not 'act'. I totally agree that not every download is a missed sale. Again that's even true for shoplifting. If you see the amount of food that shops discard everyday, it's very possible that the bread that someone stole would otherwise have ended up in the bin. But shoplifting is still stealing.

BTW, it has already been proven by independent studies that the more you pirate, the more you buy.

True but totally irrelevant to the discussion. Also if you pirate a CD from band A and buy CD's from band B and C you still harm band A.

Piracy cannot be prevented. It has been so widely spread, who has never pirated anything?

Same can be said about shoplifting, speeding and ignoring red traffic lights. And that also sums up how I feel about the gravity of piracy. Not such a big deal when it's an incidental thing. BUt irrelevant to the discussion about the value of digital goods.

Plus, aside this technological evolution, I also speak about the moral side. Is it the goal of a musician to make millions? Since when is it necessary that the people help talented musicians make millions? Just like Bill Gates having what is his wealth today, why should Michael Jackson or the Beatles be so rich?

It's called capitalism and apparently you don't agree with that system. That's perfectly fine. Cast your vote accordingly next time you have elections or you can also move to a state that is organised according to different principles. But again: irrelevant to the discussion about the value of digital goods.

[Socrates]

You are probably moving this to politics where you should not be.

About the revenue earned from radio airing, I could also state that domain public has been constantly postponed, with regards to the constant shifting of rights after the date of the author's death, since the early 20th century. Why is it so? Am I a communist because I think it is way too much nowadays?
This kind of revenue goes on... forever... ... ...
And this has not been done to help the poor musicians, but to help the rich, cultural industry.

Digital distribution is a change, and a major one. Now, various things can be implemented as immaterial goods, ie. a set of 1's and 0's, and be virtually copied an infinite number of times. All of this is information. And information, as soon as it is published, cannot be controlled.

I say piracy (for music and movies) is not a big deal today. Yeah, majors are complaining. But I have never heard an artist complaining from not getting the money he should get. This is always brought by majors.
And from what I saw in this thread, we mostly agree that majors have done everything wrong so far, and are thus responsible for the situation. Not earlier than today, I saw that Amazon is thinking of setting up a secondary market for digital audio! Like, resell "used" mp3. How silly can it be???

Calling communist will not help. What I vote for is fair capitalism. But capitalism exists because we live in a world where rarity is the norm: we need raw materials, machines, man work, etc., all of which are limited, ie. rare., ie. have a cost value.
On the contrary, things that can be copied at no cost are not rare, but abundant. Designing artificial and arbitrary limits around these things is not what I call fair capitalism. Note that it has nothing to do with the will to make mucho money out of your own ideas/affairs, with which I have no problem, and is out of the scope of this debate.