Piracy and Illegal Downloads

[Campitor]

Chesterton's fence: In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."

Intellectual property doesn't exist in a vacuum especially on the internet. Every online book, movie, video, paper, etc., exists only because of the infrastructure in place. Hosting content online costs money. Some of this money is recouped and/or profits made by the selling of the intellectual property hosted therein. By stealing online content you're not just stealing from the creator but also from the people who depend on the revenue generated by the commercial activities on their site.

When revenues drop, businesses are incentivized to cut pay, lay off workers, or replace workers by automation. Despite what many may think, providing all this online content isn't cheap and it employs huge swath of people at various income levels. It's only through the large volume of transactions, at generally acceptable market rates, that hosted internet content survives. Any theft that occurs is generally passed on to the honest customers. That many are blind or uncaring to the downstream consequences of online content theft is quite sad. The same mentality that justifies online theft is the same type of thinking that leads to unintended consequences and externalities - see Chesterton's fence above.

[theanimal]

@ZAF Correction- Thanks for sharing your thoughts. That's the best argument against what I've thought yet and there's nothing in there that I disagree with.

[C40]

This past summer I had an ongoing debate with some coworkers on the ethics of getting the fuel points from fueling work vehicles with work credit cards. I think it's stealing, but I was in the minority and heard all the same arguments you listed above.

A (sizeable) company that has it's shit together will have clear guidelines on this kind of thing. It is important to not burden every individual employee with the question of whether it's ok or not. They can decide it once and then clarify for everyone, and let them spend their mental energy on actual work.

Those guidelines can't clarify every single detail/question, but if they cover enough, most questions become easier to then apply the intent/style of the guidelines yourself.

The company that I worked for had rules. Like:
- All the 'rewards' points you get from work travel/spending are yours personally. Don't use them to fund work travel. Over 3 years of work travel, I built up enough points ~20 one-way flights.
- When you're flying and the airline gives that request for some people to take a later flight and receive a voucher (They are usually like $150, $300, $600, and I think sometimes also include a refund of the ticket price) - don't volunteer for those. I had gotten in the habit of doing this on the way home from some work trips - where IMO my weekend had started when I left the factory and started traveling home. I'd get like $350 a pop in exchange for getting home a couple hours later. I mentioned it to a guy at that factory and he let me know that the policy says not to do it. So I stopped doing it.

[theanimal]

@C40- My employer was the State of Alaska so I would hope they have guidelines... It has never been covered in any sort of training and a brief search reveals no actual guidelines as to what constitutes inappropriate use, only punishments for such offenses.

[Riggerjack]

You got your moral panties twisted in a bunch because the big bad RIAA was making examples out of people stealing? So what. That's the law. Stealing intellectual property is breaking the law.

Patents, were originally grants of privilege from the King. Someone would petition the King ($$$) for the "right" to build a mill on the river. Then have the "right" to pay taxes to the King, as the King's share of the business. Patent holders became tax collectors of the best kind: tax collectors who paid themselves.

This works well for the king and the mill owner, but those are the only interests being served.

Then the US revolted, and then the fledgling nation had the option of playing king in the patent process.

Our modern IP has those roots. Our government has encouraged IP, not because it's good for society, but because it's good for the coffers.

As society changes, so do the rules. There was a time when only property owners could vote. Or when only white folks could ride in certain areas of buses. The rules change. That's how things work.

We had patents. They became a recognized path to wealth, so patent applications became much more common. Even my great grandfather had a few. But as with every path to wealth, overcrowding became a problem. Today, patent trolls watch as patents are applied for, then apply for patents surrounding it.

Discover a new way to improve electrical generators and apply for the patent; tomorrow there is a patent application using your improvement, applied to hydropower generators, to tidal generators, to diesel powered generators, to small generators, ad nauseum.

That's just how patents work, now. One is better off not documenting one's invention until ready for product release. Then apply as one does a PR campaign for the product, and document it. Then at least, in the following lawsuits, one can claim public knowledge to invalidate the patent trolls patents.

IP law never guaranteed to protect IP. It allows you to try to protect your own IP. The Wright brothers went broke, trying to enforce their patent. Eli Whitney never broke even on the cotton gin.

With this background, I look at file copying, and PR campaigns built around trying to conflate the right to prohibit copies with Righteousness, rather than privilege.

Like we are supposed to feel bad about a world of freer information, because the gatekeepers feed the scraps to the artists. Or have respect for an aristocratic tradition that enriched the King and his cronies. I'm sure someone made the sacred constitutional rights argument to defend segregation, as well.

And how is that sacred constitutional right supposed to be honored by people who didn't grow up under English common law? Do you feel they should be required to recognize the sacredness of this tradition? That's been a sticking point of international trade negotiations for years.

It must be a very righteous place, if this is where you want to make your stand against the world. I don't see it, but I am looking, if you want to show me.

I like a world of file copying. The downside is content creators will have to be more independent, as there isn't much room for corporate overhead. I can live with that. The creators I know are ok with that. There is more room in the space, as the gates are thrown open.

But the upside is beautiful! The world is full of bright minds doing incredible things for pennies. Because now, the potential audience is worldwide, and the ways of monetizing attention are profligate. I saw someone turn an AC compressor into an internal combustion engine, using a hand drill on YouTube. Hell, you could spend an hour on YouTube and see more originality than RCA or BMG produced in all of the 90's.

This plays out in other areas as well. Many mourne the loss of journalism. Me, not so much. I enjoy a world with multiple, competing narratives. I never bought into the prevailing narratives, much anyway. Though I may be the only one, judging by the reactions of my startled and angry fellow citizens...

This is the world, now. Rail against it, if you like.

[Loner]

Our government has encouraged IP, not because it's good for society, but because it's good for the coffers.
...
That's been a sticking point of international trade negotiations for years.

And for good reason. I don’t think China would have grown as it did if it wasn’t a paradise of IP infringement. Like elsewhere, they’ll strengthen IP as they produce more of it. Chomsky explained it better that I could (worth reading the whole thing) : https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/a ... ZZ1C62yRIJ

The World Trade Organization, the Uruguay round that set up the World Trade Organization imposed, it's called a "free trade agreement". It's in fact a highly protectionist agreement. … A crucial part of the Uruguay round, WTO, NAFTA, and the rest of them, is very strong (what are called) intellectual property rights. What it actually means is rights that guarantee monopoly pricing power to private tyrannies.
…
The World Trade Organization proposed new, enhanced intellectual property rights, patent rights, which means monopoly pricing rights, far beyond anything that existed in the past. In fact they are not only designed to maximize monopoly pricing, and profit, but also to prevent development. That's rather crucial. WTO rules introduced product patents. Used to be you could patent a process, but not the product. Which means if some smart guy could figure out a better way of doing it, he could do it. They want to block that. It's important to block development and progress, in order to ensure monopoly rights. So they now have product patents.

Well if you take a look at, say, US history. Suppose the colonies after independence had been forced to accept that regime. Do you know what we'd be doing now?
…
The US would never have had a steel industry. Again same reason. British steel was way superior. One of the reasons is because they were stealing Indian techniques. British engineers were going to India to learn about steel-making well into the 19th century. Britain ran the country by force, so they could take what they knew. And they develop a steel industry. And the US imposed extremely high tariffs, also massive government involvement, through the military system as usual. And the US developed a steel industry. And so it continues. Right up to the present.

Well, that's what the intellectual property rights are for. In fact there's a name for it in economic history. Friedrich List, famous German political economist in the 19th century, who was actually borrowing from Andrew Hamilton, called it "kicking away the ladder". First you use state power and violence to develop, then you kick away those procedures so that other people can't do it.

I think it’s pretty much the same in the world of arts, culture, etc. The gatekeepers are the main people profiting from the IP, not the creators themselves. Many (different types of) writers, for instance, do not have the time, energy or even capacity to learn about copyrights (at least, not to learn about it in such a way that they get a fighting chance against their corporate clients who employ armies of lawyers), etc., and they often end up being forced to give up all their rights under a veiled threat of not getting work anymore.

For every George Lucas, you get 100 writers who get screwed out of this arrangement. On the whole, I’m not sure IP is a net benefit.

[Campitor]

For every George Lucas, you get 100 writers who get screwed out of this arrangement. On the whole, I’m not sure IP is a net benefit.

So how does internet piracy help the screenwriter? And who should the "net benefit" actually benefit? I can write a saga worthy of a 3 picture deal but it still takes a boat-load of money and people to bring that to the screen. When you steal content you're not only stealing from George Lucas and the screenwriter - you're stealing from everyone in between and that includes the audience who pays the difference for the piracy.

You can paint IP law as an anachronism rooted in the "King's Law" or a mechanism for funneling money to the wealthy but that doesn't lessen the impact on the lower wage workers involved in serving up the IP content. If you don't like IP law then you should work to change the law and not circumvent it via theft. When profits are diminished you either increase prices or diminish the cost of production by either 1) automating 2) lay offs 3) reducing quality to an acceptable threshold 4) exporting production to a lower wage economy.

[Loner]

I may not have made myself clear. I’m not saying writers necessarily benefit from piracy, although many writers are indeed of this opinion. Obscurity is a worse plight than getting your ebooks "stolen" (you consider that piracy is theft; I don’t).

Here is some interesting reading, if you have time: https://www.thecreativepenn.com/2017/02/23/piracy/
https://nextcity.org/informalcity/entry ... eyre-readi

I’ve even read about writers self-pirating in order to reach a wider readership. You know, in the end, a lot of people write first because they want their ideas to circulate.

Now, how does IP hinder writers. Well, as a writer, clients (editors, producers, etc.) will often ask you to release (to them) your rights, and for eternity, in all circumstances, and for every country on earth. Even if they go bankrupt. That means you cannot republish what you wrote or reuse it in any way. Many writers indeed were stuck in a position where their editor shut down (so, no reprints even if the book is popular), yet, still couldn’t re-publish (or adapt, etc.) their material because they had lost/given their right. There’s many problems with copyrights, but that’s only one of them. Yeah, sure, today it's easy to sell your writing independently, but you're up against the marketing firehoses of those big (rent-seeking) middlemen you're talking about.

I do understand what you’re saying about "stealing" the middlemen, but I think that they are rent-seekers, and as such, I do not think the profits they’re doing to be legitimate. Let's say I could hardy feel sad when Uber came along and assaulted the taxi industry. If you choose to get in an industry like that, I think you should be aware of the risks. As for changing laws, well, life is short and I cannot actively fight everything I’m for or against. I don't even care very much about the topic. So I won't.

But as I wrote some pages ago – since I sense some personal animosity, though I may be wrong – I do not resort very much to piracy. Like I said, when I do, it’s most often books written by professors already paid through public funds. I sleep well at night. I buy new books (though rarely), I buy used books, I use resources distributing classics in a legal manner (Project Gutenberg, University of Adelaide’s ebook collection, classiques.uqac.ca for classics in French, etc.) and I certainly also use the library and their interlibrary loan service (and I do "buying suggestions" which have, until now, all been accepted), through which I have access to about 80 % of the books I want. The librarians are surprised, and tell me so, when they do not see me for a few days. And I do not change the price on bananas, or whatever is the trick supposed to be about. If I see mistakes on bills (that are not in my favour), I asked for it to be fixed. Etc. This is not what it's about. I just do not think that piracy is theft since ideas are non rival.

(Btw, I did not talk about King’s Law. Rigger did.)

[Campitor]

I do understand what you’re saying about "stealing" the middlemen, but I think that they are rent-seekers, and as such, I do not think the profits they’re doing to be legitimate.

How are you defining rent seeking? I think that's pivotal to this conversation since so many have talked about it but not defined what it means when they say it. Some would consider government to be the biggest rent seeker in existence but then they claim that the services rendered justify the rent seeking. Here is how I define rent seeking: when an entity tries to gain wealth without reciprocal contribution of productivity.

When online content is "pirated" it obviously has some value otherwise why would anyone want to pirate it? So what is fair game? You mentioned downloading books from professors paid by public funds. So is it a publicly funded site that is hosting the content? How is the site paid for? Perhaps the cost of the site is subsidized by the payments made for the hosted content therein otherwise the site may not exist at all or get cut on the next budget cycle. You don't know so you have no idea what harm you may be doing. This is the death by pinprick - murder by a thousand cuts multiplied by the millions who pirate content.

I don't have any animosity toward you, Rigger, or those who admitted to pirating on this thread. I believe you're probably all very good people. But just because pirating appears harmless doesn't mean it really is. And this is the sad part - good people often do things they believe innocuous but when viewed collectively it has an enormous effect. CO2, water depletion, pollution, etc., all caused by good people thinking they are doing no harm and sleeping well at night.

[Loner]

Well, I’d define it conventionally. But let’s use your definition. It seems to me that IP is, in a general sense, rent seeking in the way you meant. I mean, if you come up with an idea for a product in a hypothetical IP-free world, and then you sell it, then you make some money. Now let us say you introduce IP and you protect your idea. Well now you just made some extra money by locking up your idea and preventing others from using it. You are now a monopoly (for that idea) and you can charge more. And you get extra wealth out of it, without producing anything more.

“So is it a publicly funded site that is hosting the content?” No. Library Genesis. As for what is fair game, well, I’d say this is case-by-case. As I said, I understand people need to eat and live. I’m not averse to paying for reading. There was a time when I had an annual subscription to about 3 magazines, and I’d periodically buy newspapers and other magazines on top of that. (I cut it all out since I just did not see the value anymore, unfortunately. I don’t even read them for free on the web.) So I do try to support authors if they're alive. It's just that for me, my reading diet is composed entirely of nonfiction, and the vast majority of it is from professors (thus the example I gave), whose books I'll get from the library (I'm a member of four different libraries) or Library Genesis, and dead people (free of rights). If I wanted to read poems from a local author (I don't) or if I was interested in a new novel (I wouldn't), or something like that I'd just buy the book or order it from the library.

[Loner]

As a side note: I’m a writer myself (amongst many things I do), in a dying industry, after being told that there was not any money to be done in writing and that we’d all starve. Not that I didn’t know the tune beforehand. I charged ahead anyways and have been doing it successfully for a decade now. It’s not easy, it still doesn’t pay well and I don’t ever expect it to. (I’m considering switching work, but for different reasons.) It never did in the history of mankind. So I just cannot really empathize much with the “poor artists” arguments. You know what you’re getting into. Now, on a personal level, I genuinely feel for those in middlemen industries. It’s just that what you see as harm, I see it as them losing a part of their rents.

[Riggerjack]

@ loner

If you look back, piracy of copyright is more American than apple pie. piracy of English titles in the colonies was rampant and a serious bone of contention between the empire, the colonies, and the US. Funny how things change, yet stay the same.

You can paint IP law as an anachronism rooted in the "King's Law" or a mechanism for funneling money to the wealthy but that doesn't lessen the impact on the lower wage workers involved in serving up the IP content. If you don't like IP law then you should work to change the law and not circumvent it via theft.

yes, I certainly could do that. I do want change, and if that were the change I were looking for, and had nothing better to waste my life on, maybe that what I should do.

When profits are diminished you either increase prices or diminish the cost of production by either 1) automating 2) lay offs 3) reducing quality to an acceptable threshold 4) exporting production to a lower wage economy.

But I may have been unclear in my earlier writing. This IS my goal. Burn it to the ground. Spread the ashes and bones, then burn it again.

This hostility isn't born out of a vacuum. I am overly familiar with the way the arts work as an industry. I am overly familiar with how the shares work. Thank you but I don't want the laws changed, I want the business model to fail so spectacularly it never attracts another dollar of investment. I want it to go down as an example of what happens when rent seeking is pushed too hard, and the citizenry rises up with pitchforks and torches!

But, as I said in my first post, I haven't thought about this in about 15 years, and am too busy/lazy to pirate as much as I believe I should. I just thought I should make clear there are moral reasonings on both sides of the scale.

[chenda]

@riggerjack - So, just so we're all clear, you're advocating collective ownership of all intellectual property ? Lawfully selling bootleg DVDs of films and PDFs of bestsellers, as but one example ?

[Riggerjack]

No. I don't want to change the law. I want to change the market.

Perhaps I should explain.

My parents were professional artists, one still is. And I am an extreme introvert, and always have been. So, I understand that my sample rate is at the extreme end of at least two spectrums, here.


But here's the stories of people I know by name and face, and met in person, that relate to the topic.

I knew a guy who had a deal to display in a gallery. The gallery owner was arranging the run of limited edition prints. So he signed the rights over. But the prints are never made. The gallery closes, the art disappears, the rights get sold in bankruptcy. Now he's got art on a lot of old books, and never got a dime for the art, or the reproductions.

Usually, the story above ends at the gallery closes, and sometimes the art is returned. I've heard it at least half a dozen times. But guy who lost the rights and his art was laughing about it. He said that's when he knew he had to go get a real job, he was too honest for art.


My stepfather has works in several museums, is two of those gallery closes scenarios, is in old books about his medium, invented new niche artform, and couldn't make enough to rise above the poverty line until he gave up the fine art dreams, and started doing "shit production work".

My classmate at AIT (army specialty training) joined up, because she had to find a way to "ride out my contract". She had signed a deal, got her album recorded, (I heard it, she was good.) And then, they sat her down and explained their career plan for her. She was going to tour as a background singer in whichever band needed her.

When she tried to quit, they showed her the paperwork. She had agreed to their services for four years, during which, they were entitled to costs and 25%. Then they showed her the costs. The costs of having a client were higher than her last year's income. So even if she didn't work for them, they were entitled to their pound of flesh. She would go into debt, pretty much either way, as costs plus 25%, travel, and taxes would wipe out the high income. Or owe costs plus 25%, and try to get by on her own. No other agent is going to rep someone under contract with someone else. So she joined the army. Something about an old law that being in the service, suspended old jobs, but I don't remember the details.

When I copy files, it is an attack on this power structure. I want them to incur their full costs, and to remove their profits. I want them to fail. I want the power dynamics of industry to artists to change. I'm attacking the Harvey Weinstein's and all the other industry clowns from #metoo. I'm attacking the part that should be offensive to us all.

So I don't understand, why this concern over artists? Art is doing great, and will get better. The barriers of entry are lower. This means lots more low quality work. But it also means we are developing a deeper talent pool. And they are getting more practice. Look at the production quality of some of these YouTube celebs. Look at how fast it's improving. And there is plenty of ways to capitalize on attention. Piracy is good for the arts.

It's the industry that is harmed, and that's the point. Sure, as suggested, I could try to get the law changed. But that's not what I want. I'm ok with copywrite, and all the rest of the IP laws. I just want them to be less profitable. I want to remove the leeches , after that, artists and writers will just have to craft their own audiences. The successful ones, already are. That will be the new standard.

I understand that lesser profits will cause a squeeze as institutions die. It won't be pleasant. But lancing an abscess never is.

[Campitor]

The problem with getting rid of all intellectual property rights is simple. While the creator of intellectual property may not care if their creations are personally profitable and only desire to create universally beneficial items for the greater good, those who have the means to distribute IP at scale are not working for free. To deliver items at scale requires infrastructure and human personnel; all these items cost money. So these costs must be paid for either privately via voluntary transactions or by force via taxes.

The problem with having IP paid for by the state is that it divorces IP from the market. There is no feedback to determine if the demand for intellectual property is worth the cost of the items required to bring it to the masses. Absent market feedback, government agencies have no idea if resources are being wasted. And since it's rare for any government program to be eliminated even after it has served its intended purpose, the price of free stuff slowly increases over time as new taxes must be implemented to pay for new IP that may or may not have utility.

Online piracy has the same effect on the private market. IP that is "stolen" masks the information of an IP's desirability - no transaction has been recorded so there's no knowledge if the items are needed or highly desirable. Absent this information, those who own the infrastructure capable of delivering IP to the masses will stop doing so - there's no money being made to pay for the human and technological/mechanical capital because no one believes the cost of the item is worth its current price. And since piracy occurs regardless of the price point (why buy when you get for free?), an item that may have been worth the associated costs of mass delivery is now in inaccessible at scale.

There are no free lunches. Anyone who states otherwise is lying. For the record, I do believe the current IP laws are unfair and need to change and the people working at the patent office need to be more technically proficient - but none of these changes will affect the companies that are involved with mass distributions of IP - no one is maintaining server farms for free.

[Bankai]

Are you saying that abolishing IP rights would lead to companies not making stuff anymore? What about all this production going on that's not subjected to any IP rights? Houses are built and bread is baked every day without any IP protection. If anything, there would be more and cheaper stuff produced since no barrier to entry would allow everyone with sufficient capital to manufacture the product, while now only the company that 'owns' the right can do it, plus whoever they are willing to licence it to. Which leads me to think that exactly the opposite of what you suggest would happen.

[chenda]

@riggerjack - So you are OK with IP but simultaneously think it's ok to steal it in order to make it less profitable in order to bring down those who abuse it ? I'll give you full marks for creative thinking

I wonder why your friends didn't get a sound legal opinion before signing the contract. Based on the facts you've told me, my sympathy for them is limited. In any event it sounds more like a case of contract law than specifically IP law.

How would you feel about me stealing your parent's art ? (Serious question)

[Campitor]

Are you saying that abolishing IP rights would lead to companies not making stuff anymore? What about all this production going on that's not subjected to any IP rights? Houses are built and bread is baked every day without any IP protection.

That's because those who are building houses and baking bread commercially are getting paid - how much house construction and bread baking would there be if those employed in those industries were not getting paid or if their wages were stolen in part or in full consistently?

If anything, there would be more and cheaper stuff produced since no barrier to entry would allow everyone with sufficient capital to manufacture the product, while now only the company that 'owns' the right can do it, plus whoever they are willing to licence it to. Which leads me to think that exactly the opposite of what you suggest would happen.

Creation requires capital (human and logistical). The artist either needs a patron so he can be supported during the creative process or sufficient capital gained by personal savings or employment. So either the artist must raise his own money or find someone who thinks his creation is worthy of the money invested or donated. After the creation is made, someone has to bring this creation to the market and this has an associated cost. And barriers to entry are typically enforced or created by governments - you're not going to change this behavior by pirating. The only thing piracy guarantees is the distortion of market information, the reduced desirability of incurring the cost of bringing art/IP to the market, and the incentivisation of recouping costs via layoffs, automation, or price increases paid by the honest consumer.

[jacob]

There would be "more and cheaper" stuff in the sense of China's business model where they just copy an existing product.

When innovation is no longer rewarded, the number of new products would decline because why design them when it's more profitable to focus your efforts on making an existing product better. This would not be noticeable for a while.

Alternatively, new products would be kept secret and instead sold as services. The history of birthing forceps is perhaps an example of what could happen. Their invention eventually saved many lives since giving birth used to be a risky (deadly) business for both the mother and the child. In case the child got stuck, the forceps could now be used to pull the child out whole by the head instead of in parts as per the previous procedure. However, their invention was kept secret in the family business for 150 years (by covering the eyes of the mother) and risk-free births were sold as a service instead.

[Bankai]

those employed in those industries were not getting paid or if their wages were stolen

I still don't see why their wages would be stolen?

Scenario 1:
Company A.Corp owns the patent necessary to make item B. Employees at A.Corp get paid since they are needed to make product B and bosses are happy since they have the monopoly and can dictate price. Consumers don't have any choice, so they overpay for the product.

Scenario 2:
No one owns the patent. Companies C, D, E & F all have factories producing item B as well as similar items X, Y & Z. Due to competition, prices of those items go down and quality goes up. Consumers have lower prices, better quality products, wider product range and a choice. Workers at companies C, D, E & F get paid; after all, they are necessary to produce the stuff. Bosses of C, D, E & F still make some money, but perhaps less than A.Corp would make. But now they also have to do some work to actually earn their living, rather than just enjoying rent from monopoly.