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Comment by mgkimsal | Hacker News Reader

"Copyright infringement is not stealing."

Sure, let's have a very pedentic notion of stealing and keeping framing the debate around 'stealing'.

OK... "taking something which isn't yours and/or you don't have permission to take". In most minds, that's the same as stealing, hence the standard use of the word 'stealing'. But substitute the phrase above for 'stealing' and, imo, it becomes harder to justify. Just because I an not doing an actual verifiable economic harm to someone doesn't mean it's right. Doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong, but doesn't make it right either.

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Here's a history of copyright law:

    - Copyright Act of 1790 - established U.S. copyright 
      with term of 14 years with 14-year renewal
    - Copyright Act of 1831 - extended the term to 
      28 years with 14-year renewal
    - Copyright Act of 1909 - extended term to 28 years 
      with 28-year renewal
    - Copyright Act of 1976 - extended term to either 
      75 years or life of author plus 50 years 
    - Copyright Renewal Act of 1992 
      removed the requirement for renewal
    - Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA) of 1994 
      restored U.S. copyright for certain foreign works
    - Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 extended terms 
      to 95/120 years or life plus 70 years
    - Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 
      criminalized some cases of copyright infringement

So let's get this straight, from 14 years the copyright period was extended to 95/120 years or life plus 70 years. And there's reason to believe that as long as Disney (and the like) exists, the concept of public domain is obsolete.

So you can talk about right versus wrong, good versus evil and so on, but clearly something stinks about this picture, which is why I don't blame "pirates" for justifying their acts, as their acts are justified.

And, how fucked up is it that restaurants are afraid of singing "Happy Birthday to You"? Are those singing it thieves?

Again, not really saying anything about the "right" or "wrong" aspects, but continually using the word "stealing" in the debate, then debunking it by comparing it to a car, is, at best, a strawman argument. Unfortunately, I'm not sure there's a better/easier one word description people can use (for soundbiteness) that adequately gets the point across that the major industries are trying to get across.

The point that the major industries are trying to get across is that copyright infringement is just like stealing. They're saying so quite explicitly whenever I go to the movie theater or rent a DVD.

But copyright infringement is not stealing. You could make an argument about it if the period was still 14 years (i.e. the author has only 14 years to collect revenue from it, so if you want it either pay up or wait 14 years, which is doable). But that's not the case.

How does the length of which the copyright is applicable affect whether copyright infringement is stealing?

Because copyright is not the same as stealing a physical item, so if you want to discuss the morality of it, then length does play a role, as it should since all works should enter public domain at some point, therefore ALL discussions about copyright should address the ever-extending length.

Also, discussing the morality of copyright infringement is also important, as copyright infringement does not rob the owner of the item itself. It only duplicates it.

Because a copyrighted work is not actual property, even if they call it "intellectual property" today, but that's mostly a misnomer. A copyrighted work was supposed to return to the public domain and benefit the whole society, not just the creator, by using it and improving it.

I recommend you think about this: where does property come from? Is something ours because the government says it's ours or does it have a deeper meaning that transcends government?

I'd argue that property exists because things (apples, cars, gym equipment) have limitations on their use. If I eat an apple, you can't. If you grow a crop on this property, you can't. While he uses this gym equipment, they can't.

Even in historical contexts where there has been no effective government (silk road, dark ages iceland), ideas of property have evolved that are strikingly consistent, because it extends from realities of the world.

As states developed, they came to give stronger definition to property law. But then people who were well-connected to government decided that it would be a good idea to extend these convenient powers to things which were not property, sometimes by falsely labeling them as property.

So it comes down to who has control over the language.

Is property a distinct idea, or is it just a bundle of whatever rights the government of the day declares it to be.

And if you choose the latter, if the government says that black is white, is it so?

You raise a good point here about what property actually is.

I'd like to extend on this concept and add ownership into equation.

In the example with an apple. I own it, therefore only I can eat it. It is my property. Now what happens if I give the apple to somebody else? It's their property now, so you would naturally assume they own it? And therefore they can eat it.

Alas, it's not the case with music/etc. I bought a CD with music, but it appears that I don't own it. I cannot listen to it in public (Happy Birthday to You), nor I can give it to someone else (lend DVD to a friend for a pint).

So this doesn't work out very well, the CD is my property, but I don't own it? To me owning means having right to do whatever I please with it. Imagine if blending an iPhone would become a criminal offence...

Yes. I think the key point here is that property is treated in law as a right, but copyright functions as an anti-right.

I'll try to explain what I mean by anti-right though I'm unpracticed here.

(1) Society is oriented around a presumption of live-and-let-live. Most laws give rights that state the boundary of live-and-let live, and these are positive rights.

(2) In the case of copyright, only the creator has the ability to live-and-let-live in the context of the protected thing: everyone else is restricted from it. Hence, this is a negative right, or "anti-right".

When rights and anti-rights clash, you get nasty situations develop where they can't all be true at the same time.

i.e. in order to make IP anti-rights work, the laws need to inhibit 'real' property rights.

i.e. I am not allowed to do things with magnetic signals in the privacy of my own home because that impedes an anti-right that the government has granted to someone else.

If you build complex software with a permissions model that contains both positive and negative permissions (i.e. where a user has a permission that is "can't see" something rather than being a positive right), you'll find similar nasty situations develop.

I think the CD is your property , you can destroy it if you want but the contents of the CD are only licensed to you.

Obviously this is a strange concept since the contents of the CD are a physical part of the CD itself.

It's not pedantic to differentiate between two completely different things.

If you ever have something stolen from you, you'll quickly realize the difference between theft and copyright infringement.

Debates such as these keep orbiting around the definition of stealing because the term keeps getting used for copyright infringement out of lazy thinking or in order to facilitate an agenda.

Stealing is intrinsically "wrong" from a societal perspective because it puts those who take by force into a better position than those who earn by earning it, which is not sustainable.

Whether anyone is put into a worse position by copyright infringement (e.g. in the form of illegal downloading of music) is up for debate. But any serious debate should avoid the term stealing to describe the issue at hand.

> "taking something which isn't yours..."

It's not taking, either.

Is the content industry stealing from the public, too, by extending copyright to forever and a day?

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