Quote from: GeofI'm glad that Kyle appears to have shifted from an absolute ethical claim to a practical one -

I'm a bit of a utilitarian, so the distinction means little to me. Ethics is all about what's practical. For example, some consider it wrong for men to bugger each-other. They say that it does not cause any suffering (assuming they use lube), but that it's wrong anyway. Then you point that it's impossible to prevent anyway, and they start getting upset. My utilitarian position is that something which does no harm and can't be prevented may or may not be "moral", but if it's immoral, it's meaningless to say so. We should only concern ourselves with things which do harm or good, and which can be promoted or prevented. Morality has no meaning beyond those.

But hey, "is filesharing immoral?" was the question of the thread. Thus my answer: er, maybe in principle, but in practice so what.

Quote from: GeofBut there is significant evidence that copyright (and patents) do not, in fact, achieve their goal of encouraging creativity of works (though the actual benefits of creativity are far broader than the products that result).

Is there? For evidence that copyright and patents encourage creativity, I point to the modern West. We have absolute shitloads of created material, written, images, and sounds; we have fuckloads of inventions, some of them are even useful.

Countries with weak copyright and patent enforcement, by contrast, produce little original, and trail along behind us. Of course, on the other hand the excessive enforcement of copyright and patent protection in the USA has plainly stifled innovation and diversity of thought. Another reason the place is falling behind.

Most of the rest of what you say speaks to the usefulness of US law. I agree that in that savage land, things do not work well.

Quote from: GeofIt is, after all, a recent phenomenon.  Marshall McLuhan writes in The Gutenburg Galaxy (published in 1962), "until printing, the reader or consumer was literally involved as producer."  He describes how university students would individually write their own texts;  this was considered a fundamental part of learning.

Which is possibly why less than one-tenth the population was literate. Perhaps McLuhan, like the SCA drongos, fantasises about the glory of the Middle Ages because he imagines himself an educated nobleman. It looks less shiny when you're an illiterate peasant.

With moveable type comes mass literacy. With mass literacy comes production of more texts, and thus innovation of all kinds. Societies prosper more when they can access the greatest diversity of ideas from the greatest range of people. That requires mass literacy. Copyright and patents aren't a requirement, but they sure as shit help.

Quote from: GeofMedieval students did not see books as the product of an author, but of a tradition.  In Spain in the middle ages, he quotes Stephen Gilman:  "the reader is more important than the writer."  It was the reader's reaction to the work that mattered:  "To feel books as a living, animate, communicable, and inciting reality" (quoting Americo Castro).

Again, that's all nice and warm and fuzzy, but the middle ages were a very primitive and miserable way of life. Most people could not read or write. That reader who was more important than the writer? There weren't too many of them. When less than 5% of your population can read, and every book has to be copied by hand, of course you don't need copyright and patents. It's too bloody much trouble to copy something, with or without permission, and bugger all gets invented.

Actually there's a country still around without moveable type, and where the authour doesn't matter. Or at least half of it is like that. It's a place called Afghanistan. Lovely joint.

I know little of philosophy.  From what I do know, my sympathies lie with pragmatism - chiefly with what (little) I know of John Dewey, whose emphasis on the import educational and democratic role of experience.  From this perspective, I believe, copyright is harmful because it hinders individual creative activity, preventing people from exploring themselves and the world, and from participating in democratic society.  The apparent precipitous decline of social participation over a century of large-scale mass media would seem to support this.  This is why it is necessary to consider copyright from the perspective of practices, not only of "works".

Quote from: Kyle AaronBut hey, "is filesharing immoral?" was the question of the thread. Thus my answer: er, maybe in principle, but in practice so what.

I would also say maybe, but then ask the practical question:  does filesharing improve matters?  On the one hand, its scale threatens a corrupt regime.  On the other, the self-interest of filesharers undermines criticism.  Vocal critics of copyright would probably be better off not sharing.

Quote from: Kyle AaronFor evidence that copyright and patents encourage creativity, I point to the modern West. We have absolute shitloads of created material, written, images, and sounds; we have fuckloads of inventions, some of them are even useful.

Cliches:  correlation does not imply causation, and anecdotes are not data.  You write, "that's all nice and warm and fuzzy, but the middle ages were a very primitive and miserable way of life. Most people could not read or write."  This undermines your claims for the effects of copyright in the West.  For us, the last century or so have been a period of unprecedented period of growth in which the vast majority of the population have gained the means to live, leaving enough time and resources to spend on entertainment.  This was a period in which much of culture, from music to sports, has gone from a shared practice of communities to a mass-produced product of industry.  The period since 1945 in particular has also been one of peace in the homelands of the Western countries.  I think it would be surprising if cultural products had not proliferated.

One might even ask the question, are there too many?  I've seen discussions about RPGs in which many or most participants say "yes" - and this is a miniscule industry hardly deserving of the name.  We don't need more quantity, though we may need more quality, diversity, participation, and freedom.

Similarly, the causes of technical development over the 20th century are very difficult to trace to patents.  I think innovation has slowed down dramatically in the latter half of the century.  In the first half of that period, we had assembly-line mass production, consumer automobiles, flight, jet propulsion, sound and color film, radio, television, rocketry, the telephone, nuclear energy, plastic, the computer, modern construction techniques, electrification, and so on.  Since then, the agricultural revolution, genetics, and the Internet spring to mind, along with numerous improvements to previous technologies.  Improvements are incremental, and so are more likely to be hindered by patents (and worse "tragedy of the anti-commons" situations in which licensing of multiple patents is impractical, leading to stagnation - as was the case with radio before U.S. government intervention during WWI).  Incremental innovation isn't really new - it was the case, for example, in the development of industrial production in the English textile industry in the 18th century.  Silicon Valley is famous for incremental innovation with relatively weak appeals to IP protections.

Quote from: Kyle AaronCountries with weak copyright and patent enforcement, by contrast, produce little original, and trail along behind us.

Taiwan, China?  India with one of the world's biggest (and I believe most productive) film industry?  The U.S., whose copyright protections initially extended only to Americans, then until recently were exceptionally weak?  The U.S. ratified the Berne convention in 1989, over a century after it was drafted and decades later than most other Western countries (introducing the idea of author's rights into U.S. law).

Just a couple of clarifications.

I wrote,

QuoteOne might even ask the question, are there too many? I've seen discussions about RPGs in which many or most participants say "yes" - and this is a miniscule industry hardly deserving of the name. We don't need more quantity, though we may need more quality, diversity, participation, and freedom.

I don't agree that there are too many RPG products.  When I say we don't need more quantity, I mean of creative works more broadly;  in the specific case of RPGs I don't have a considered opinion.

I also wrote, "The U.S., whose copyright protections initially extended only to Americans".  This is unclear.  When the U.S. originally implemented copyright, it only applied to American works - foreign works were not protected.  I seem to recall Charles Dickens was not pleased about this.  Tolkien also got into trouble somehow with Lord of the Rings (I have a copy with a blurb on the back explaining why readers should buy the official version).

I believe American copyright was instituted partly to develop a culture in a new nation lacking cohesion (the same reasoning was partly behind Webster's changes to American spelling).  These days, the shoe is on the other foot:  Canada and the U.S. regularly get into disputes over culture.  Canada wishes to carve out a space for Canadian works in order to build national identity;  the U.S. sees cultural works as trade goods and considers Canada's actions protectionism.

We never have "enough" creative works; or perhaps we can, but we'll never know when that is. The purpose of democracy is to give everyone a voice, so that all ideas which people think can help society have a chance of coming forward. Societies which have a low rate of literacy, or which disenfranchise large segments of the population - whether by law (as in dictatorships) or by a class system (as in the US) - are societies which stagnate, turn in on themselves and become more miserable and fucked up. Societies which get ideas from across the entire range of their population do much better, overall. An open society is one which can move forwards; a closed society rolls backwards.

This openness must be encouraged. When people speak or act, their speech and actions must be protected. Few will suggest (for example) a particular change of the constitution to fix some problem if suggesting a constitutional change is legally sedition. Likewise, few will publish their creative works or inventions if those are unprotected.

We can never know if we have "enough" creative works. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, it was widely thought that everything important had been discovered, scientists just had to do some experiments to fill in a few details here and there. They didn't know that revolutions in physics, chemistry and biology were yet to come. Like us, they thought they had enough stuff out there.

Yet unquestionably, the 20th century advances in antibiotics, electrification, communications - these have measurably improved the lives of billions. You can of course point to firebombing of cities and the like to say that technology is not all good, and I would heartily agree with you. But in general there are quite a few technologies which improve people's daily lives; atrocities are unusual, more common is daily life. Overall more good than ill comes from these things; this does not mean that we should accept or put to use every technology which comes along, but then that just demonstrates that free expression of ideas is not enough, we need democracy as well - public consultation about things.

Our social and psychological - or spiritual if you prefer - lives are also greatly enhanced by the production of creative works which are words, images and sounds. Being able to read interesting novels, funny webcomics, informative and educational books, to see beautiful or thought-provoking images around us, to have a great diversity of music around to suit individual temperament and mood - these are all good things. Once we have one lot of stuff, that might be enough for you or I, but it can never be enough for society as a whole.

Having copyright and patent law encourages new creative works. Copyright and patent law is, internationally, an example of the Prisoner's Dilemma. A country is going to be best off if it has strong protections for its own works, and none for foreign works. Respecting all works is the middle course, and respecting none will get them nowhere. This is why you have situations like the US in the 19th century and China in recent years; they protected their own stuff while abusing others' stuff.

It's sometimes thought by anti-copyright people that with no copyright protections, ideas will be encouraged (no-one seems to talk much about patents), and everybody would get to have a say, a sort of direct democracy anarchic paradise. This perspective, I have found, comes almost entirely from US people. That's because US copyright law combined with the constant stream of civil court cases about it acts to stifle creative works. "Get rid of the whole thing, then!" But to abandon copyright entirely would actually favour the corporations which the anti-copyright people loathe so much. Success would go then only to whoever was able to swamp the market with their goods. Suppose I write some brilliant rpg, but can't afford to promote it much; absent copyright, a larger company could copy it and use their wealth to promote the fuck out of it, making lots of money - and I, the one who actually came up with it, would get nothing.

An absence of law favours those who are already strong, and ensures the weak stay weak. That is not democratic, and I cannot see its appeal - except obviously for the strong.

Again, I am not interested in speaking about US law in its particular and diverse applications and interpretations, Geof. I realise that as an American you're quite keen on US law and US issues. But we're speaking here of morality, and principles - and those are universal, affecting all 100% of the whole, not just 4.5% of it. We're talking about what's best for all, what we think is right and wrong.

I think that copyright and patent protections are right and good in principle, but they should be limited in time and extent and nature; both the protections and the limits should be framed with a view to the public good. The public good is best served by giving just enough protection to expressions of ideas (copyright) and methods and techniques (patent) to encourage them and get them out there, but not so much protection that a creative person need do only one creative work in all their lives, or such that a person who happens to come up with same ideas as someone long dead finds themselves in trouble.

Quote from: Kyle AaronWe never have "enough" creative works; or perhaps we can, but we'll never know when that is. The purpose of democracy is to give everyone a voice, so that all ideas which people think can help society have a chance of coming forward.

Quick answer:  You are right to go after my use of the word "works" here - I should have said "products".  There's a difference between speech as a product and speech as an process or activity.  The latter is, IMHO, at least as important to democracy.  I am not claiming that copyright will, in fact, produce more works:  I am claiming that this is not necessarily a justification given the costs.  I actually suspect it produces less speech - though perhaps more "original" speech.

I think it is a huge leap to go from "people should be free to speak" to "people need to be paid to speak".  Especially, as I've pointed out before, when the latter harms the former.

Quote from: Kyle AaronSocieties which get ideas from across the entire range of their population do much better, overall

Copyright results in a concentration of speech.  It excludes incremental speech:  if you're not creative enough to come up with an entire "original" work or you lack the resources to do so, you may not be able to speak at all.  Large corporations benefit because they can use all the works for which they hold copyright without the costs of going through the copyright system.  They don't set up intellectual property protections and markets internally (funny, that), but smaller competitors and alternatives are subject to such barriers.  Effectively, media companies benefit from economies of scale - except they're not really more efficient;  copyright imposes diseconomies for everybody else.

Quote from: Kyle AaronFew will suggest (for example) a particular change of the constitution to fix some problem if suggesting a constitutional change is legally sedition. Likewise, few will publish their creative works or inventions if those are unprotected.

This comparison is outlandish.  Lack of exclusivity = lack of freedom of speech?  Contributing to the public domain is like sedition?

Quote from: Kyle AaronWe can never know if we have "enough" creative works.

We can never know if we have "enough" health care.  Yet we allow people to spend money on entertainment and creativity!  That we can never know is not a justification for unlimited subsidy - or rather against diverting any resources elsewhere.  One must consider the costs, not only the benefits.

Quote from: Kyle AaronOur social and psychological - or spiritual if you prefer - lives are also greatly enhanced by the production of creative works which are words, images and sounds. Being able to read interesting novels, funny webcomics, informative and educational books, to see beautiful or thought-provoking images around us, to have a great diversity of music around to suit individual temperament and mood - these are all good things.

What about being able to participate in the creation of these things?

Quote from: Kyle AaronHaving copyright and patent law encourages new creative works.

Will repetition make it so?  Is there some actual evidence that gives you such conviction?

Quote from: Kyle Aaronto abandon copyright entirely would actually favour the corporations . . . Success would go then only to whoever was able to swamp the market with their goods.

There is truth to this (how much is hard to say), which is why I'm on the fence.  But your laser focus on the market explains your lack of response to arguments for participation and free speech.  

Quote from: Kyle AaronI realise that as an American you're quite keen on US law and US issues.  But we're speaking here of morality, and principles - and those are universal, affecting all 100% of the whole, not just 4.5% of it. We're talking about what's best for all, what we think is right and wrong.

I'm Canadian.

It's more than a little ironic that the demographic most keen on IP piracy - young men - is also a market that demands the highest production values in its entertainment. The same folks who clamour for $250 million action movies and video games with the latest graphics engines are striking a pose as the champions of independent non-commercial art.

Until I see geeks thronging to low-budget movies and three-man-shop computer games, I'll take all this talk about the viability of independent art with a whopping grain of salt.

Quote from: GeofI think it is a huge leap to go from "people should be free to speak" to "people need to be paid to speak".  Especially, as I've pointed out before, when the latter harms the former.

I didn't say that people needed to be paid to speak. Again, you show your cultural bias. I said that people should have control over their original works. This naturally leads to their making money from it, if there is money to be made, but it's not necessarily part of it. More than 90% of novels, films and so on make no profit at all; the other 10% subsidise their production. But still, we want that 90% that makes no money, since their ideas inform the remaining 10%; there are indirect benefits (some of them financial) even if no direct benefits. Would we be happy with 90% less creative works? I don't think so.

Quote from: GeofCopyright results in a concentration of speech.  It excludes incremental speech:  if you're not creative enough to come up with an entire "original" work or you lack the resources to do so, you may not be able to speak at all.

You're confusing different issues. There's free speech as such, and then there are creative works. Copyright and patents mean that people must be creative, they cannot be unoriginal. Yes, that is completely true. Why is it bad? Why is it bad for people to have to be original and creative? if there are no copyright or patent laws, then creative people don't have to use their creativity, they can just follow what someone else came up with; if there are such protections, then the creativity of people is called on. As I said, the protections encourage creativity. I can't see why that's a bad thing, or what relation it has to free speech in general.

Quote from: GeofLarge corporations benefit because they can use all the works for which they hold copyright without the costs of going through the copyright system.  They don't set up intellectual property protections and markets internally (funny, that), but smaller competitors and alternatives are subject to such barriers.  Effectively, media companies benefit from economies of scale - except they're not really more efficient;  copyright imposes diseconomies for everybody else.

That's not a problem with copyright or patents as such, but simply a problem of a concentration of wealth. The guy with all the loot gets to call the shots. This applies in every kind of society, from a bunch of Kalahari Bushmen and the chief sitting back on his arse while the hunters and gatherers run around waiting on him, to the US civil case court system.

Quote from: GeofWe can never know if we have "enough" health care.  Yet we allow people to spend money on entertainment and creativity!  That we can never know is not a justification for unlimited subsidy - or rather against diverting any resources elsewhere.  One must consider the costs, not only the benefits.

Again with the cultural bias. This issue becomes clearer if you look at the other 95.5% of the world. Health care spending and copyright/patents are unrelated issues. Copyright and patents don't require subsidies; subsidies are not the same as legal protection. My privacy is legally protected, but does not require a money subsidy. Health care, on the other hand, obviously requires a public and/or private subsidy.

Quote from: GeofWhat about being able to participate in the creation of these things?

A sensible copyright/patent law will have provision for collaborative works. I'm fairly sure all do.

Quote from: GeofWill repetition [of "Having copyright and patent law encourages new creative works."] make it so?  Is there some actual evidence that gives you such conviction?

I've explained it many times already. the evidence is our entire Western civilisation's history. Mass literacy + copyright/patent + free speech --> technological and social progress.

Societies which are lacking in one or more of those areas will have less or no technological and social progress. Saudi Arabia has not got mass literacy or free speech, and so produces no technological innovation worth speaking of (even oil pumping technologies are mostly Western), and is socially backward, with large parts of its population subjected to segregation and poverty. China has poor copyright/patent protections and lacks free speech, and is reduced to copying the technology of others, producing nothing much new of its own. The Soviet Union lacked free speech or copyright/patent protections, and ended up collapsing from those and other reasons. The United States has dropping literacy and excessively stringent copyright/patent protections, and its per capita median income is dropping, its share of world manufacturing dropping, and so on.

A wider view of the world and its history will make these things clear. Focusing on your own little corner makes these things muddy.

Quote from: GeofThere is truth to this (how much is hard to say), which is why I'm on the fence.  But your laser focus on the market explains your lack of response to arguments for participation and free speech.  

I've not got a laser focus on the market. It's just that you keep bringing it up, and in an honest discussion, a person will respond to points made. I began by talking about control of original works, it was you who started babbling about the market. I only initiated discussion of a money issue in regards to the infosocialist idea of "information wants to be free!", commenting that it was ironic that they had a socialist ideal of things, that absent copyright/patent everyone would have free access to stuff, when in fact current concentration of wealth meant that the opposite would happen.

Infosocialism can't work without socialism. Removing copyright/patent protections while keeping wealth concentrated in the hands of a few will just mean that the rich will get richer, and the people who create original works will be forgotten, receiving neither money nor esteem for their work.

Aside from that, it's you and others who are babbling about the market. You're forgetting the fact that more than 90% of original works never produce a significant profit for their maker at all. If profit were the only motive for copyright/patents, then most original works would have been released into the public domain within 12 months of their production.

People like to have control over their original works. I've been saying this since the beginning; thus the correspondence with privacy. If I am unhappy that you rummaged through my underwear drawer and read my journal, that's not because you might have made money from it, but because it's mine, damnit - keep your fucking hands off. I may choose to expose my underwear drawer, or my journal - but it's mine, and should be my choice. Money's got nothing to do with it. It's the same with any original work.

Quote from: GeofI'm Canadian.

Canadians, like Australians, are becoming increasingly culturally American. Your arguments and place of focus here has been culturally American. You show an igorance of the common law system, for example, since you seek One True Answer For All, rather than acknowledging that there are no final answers, we just muddle along from case to case.

I'm done with repeating myself here. Before you post again, if you want me to reply you'll have to come up with something new, instead of the same stuff. Yes, you'll have to be original. A bummer I know, but there you are.

Quote from: HaffrungIt's more than a little ironic that the demographic most keen on IP piracy - young men - is also a market that demands the highest production values in its entertainment.

Of course. And this comes back to what I said were the three motivations for piracy: being a cheaparse, being a collector, and being poor. Young blokes in the developed West are very often cheaparsed, and there are a lot of collectors, too.

Just head on over to rpg.net and watch people complain about the free stuff they got. Cheaparses.

Quote from: Kyle AaronCanadians, like Australians, are becoming increasingly culturally American.

You should be so lucky.

Quote from: Kyle AaronYour arguments and place of focus here has been culturally American.

Infosocialism/Socialism is American?  In what alternate universe?

Quote from: Kyle AaronYou show an igorance of the common law system, for example, since you seek One True Answer For All, rather than acknowledging that there are no final answers, we just muddle along from case to case.

Wow.  Pragmatism. How very...American of you.