{"id":1392,"date":"2010-09-15T04:43:13","date_gmt":"2010-09-14T18:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/?p=1392"},"modified":"2010-09-26T23:38:37","modified_gmt":"2010-09-26T13:38:37","slug":"ethics-of-piracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/2010\/09\/15\/ethics-of-piracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethics of Piracy"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been having an argument with Sunny and James over Twitter, which isn’t very efficient. I thought I would bring it here where we could say our piece in more than 140 characters.<\/p>\n

It was provoked by a complaint from James about the BSA, an industry association formed by a number of major software companies, including Adobe and Microsoft worried about piracy. James suggested offering rewards for disgruntled employees to dob in their employers for copyright infringement is unethical. (I hope I have stated James’ point of view correctly, and that he’ll correct me if I haven’t.)<\/p>\n

I didn’t see how this was unethical, and asked him for his justification.<\/p>\n

Is this a conflict of interest I need to declare? A friend of mine used to work for the BSA.<\/div>\n

The discussion quickly became wide-ranging, but I do want to keep an eye on the goal.<\/p>\n

I have been watching the self-satisfying claims made by people wanting to pirate software on the net for some time, and frankly a lot of it strikes me as self-interested bullshit. On the other hand, I have respect for James’ opinion. Furthermore, he is a producer of intellectual property, so he is a potential victim of piracy, which is why I picked up on this discussion now.<\/p>\n

So, in order to help us hone down where the disagreement is, let me make some bold and controversial statements – controversial in that they largely represent the status quo<\/em>. It seems I am a conservative. (I hasten to add this view doesn’t extend to software patents.) <\/p>\n

I invite people to point to any item in the argument which they disagree with, and the reason why they disagree.<\/p>\n

Perhaps because I am taking the conservative viewpoint, I do not believe I am making any extraordinary claims, and I offer little in the way of evidence, putting the onus on the people who want change. Feel free to challenge me on that.<\/div>\n
    \n
  1. We live in a largely capitalistic society, where the underlying belief is that personal ownership and greed are forces for good – driving an efficient market and getting productive systems<\/li>\n
  2. There are some situations, where we believe that the capitalistic system is not the most effective at producing social good, and so we regulate anti-free-market restrictions. In Australia, universal health care is one such example. There are currently no such regulations (that I can think of) related to universal access of software or movies. The public library system does offer a limited-right universal access to books.<\/li>\n
  3. In keeping with a capitalistic system, we generally allow owners to make decisions about how their property is used. If I own a hammer, I get to decide who can use it. If I own land, I get to decide who can use it. (As before, there are restrictions.)<\/li>\n
  4. Sometimes, it would be in society’s greater good for a particular piece of property to be owned by someone else. However, the government doesn’t often seize a large piece of property and share it out. Why? Probably because it is even better for society for people to be confident that if they strive they get to keep their profits. That said, the government does<\/em> seize small pieces of property to share it out for social good all the time. It is called tax.<\/li>\n
  5. Going further, the government does not condone people in need stealing property, even to feed their starving family. You can understand why an individual would do it, but it is still illegal. If a person is that hungry, the government strives to feed them itself.<\/li>\n
  6. Just as someone can toil to make a physical item, a person can toil to make an intellectual item.<\/li>\n
  7. With physical items, capitalist governments reward such toil by granting ownership to the item, and promising not to take more than a small proportion of it away. It can be seen that such ownership drives productive behaviour to create more items.<\/li>\n
  8. With intellectual items, capitalist governments reward such toil by granting ownership to the item, and promising not to take more than a small proportion of it away. There are many forms of this, including patents and trademarks, but today we are talking about copyright. It can be seen that such ownership drives productive behaviour to create more items.<\/em><\/li>\n
  9. Ownership of a physical item and ownership of an intellectual items are directly analogous, but care must be taken about where the analogy holds. Both are assets.\n<\/li>\n
  10. In both cases, selling the item is not the only transaction available. You can license usage in a number of ways. “You may use this hammer until Tuesday; you may not lend it out.” “You may watch this movie until Tuesday; you may not lend it out.”<\/li>\n
  11. The recipient in this case does not need to agree to the condition. They have the right to live without the property. They don’t have the right to unilaterally set the conditions.<\/li>\n
  12. You can call such usage a “service” if you like. That doesn’t seem to change anything.<\/li>\n
  13. Some people share their property for free. Nice people. Good for them. That doesn’t mean everyone does. It does not mean everyone should.<\/li>\n
  14. In particular – and this is an important point – the decision of whether someone should share their property for free belongs to the owner. The person who wants it does not get to decide.<\/li>\n
  15. This is still true, even if it would be a social good for that person to have the property instead.<\/li>\n
  16. This is still true, even if it is in the owner’s interest to share or give away the property. The owner’s decisions may be small-mindeded and stupid, and despite that, the decisions are protected by law. For the same reason as before – maintaining the connection between ownership and the ability to decide encourages people to create more property.<\/li>\n
  17. There are several key differences between intellectual and physical property. The analogy isn’t perfect.<\/li>\n
  18. Breaking the agreement is generally easier with intellectual property. If you use my hammer for too long, I will know. If you copy my movie and use it for too long, I may not.<\/li>\n
  19. If you make a secret copy of the owner’s intellectual property, the owner will still have their copy. However, the value of their asset is diminished. (Their asset is NOT a pile of DVDs. Their asset is a pile of DVDs and the intellectual property that is on them.) If they could have sold 1000 licenses at $20, they have an asset worth $20,000. If you took a copy for a friend, they can only sell 999 licenses at $20, and they have lost $20.<\/li>\n
  20. If your friend would have only paid $5, that does not make it okay to take a copy. Perhaps the owner was planning on dropping the price next week after selling copies at $20 for the early-adopters? You have devalued the asset $5. Even if you think the owner is pricing the item wrong, you may not take a copy.<\/li>\n
  21. Even if the owner is charging $1 million and you would only pay $1, you may not take a copy. Your competitor may be willing to pay $1 million to be the exclusive user of the software, in which case you have cost the owner $1 million.<\/li>\n
  22. For unclear legals reasons, there is a difference in how infringers are dealt with. If you steal my car, I call the police, and (hopefully) they get my car back, and put you in jail. If you steal my movie, I call a lawyer and sue you to get money and damages.<\/li>\n
  23. This has certain practical implications. The original license for your music (which happens to be on a CD, but just because you own 5c worth of plastic, doesn’t mean you own the intellectual property on the CD) may not permit you to copy it to your MP3 player for personal use. In theory, you should seek permission from the property owner. In practice, you may decide that the risk of being sued for the diminished value of the asset is worth it, despite the damage to your moral character.<\/li>\n
  24. There is no ethical difference between stealing from a person and stealing from a corporation. All corporations are owned by people.<\/li>\n
  25. It is ethical to be a whistleblower. It performs a great social good.<\/li>\n
  26. If your employer hires you to ensure that some law or social expectation is met, and rather than following internal procedures to do that, you dob on the company to report that it hasn’t met that standard, that’s not really whistleblowing, that’s negligence.<\/li>\n
  27. On the other hand, reporting crimes and other wrong-doing via internal procedures that do not act to protect the victim and other potential victims, but instead act to protect the perpetrator or the organisation itself, is unethical<\/li>\n
  28. In particular, if you believe your child may have been raped by a priest, you may<\/em> report that to your bishop and you must<\/em> report it to the police, even if your bishop tells you not to.<\/li>\n
  29. It is dangerous to be a whistleblower. There are costs and risks.<\/li>\n
  30. It is not unethical to reward whistleblowers who claims are proven to be true an amount less than or equal to the costs and risks involved.<\/li>\n
  31. This discussion on whistleblowing is independent on whether you are reporting to the police or the BSA.<\/li>\n
  32. People’s opinions about intellectual property have been changing; piracy is perceived by many as ethical.<\/li>\n
  33. I believe their opinions often change rapidly at about the moment they have learn how easy it is to copy intellectual property such as movies or software. I see little evidence that the decision is based on any rigorous system of ethics.<\/li>\n
  34. Humans are self-deluded, self-justifying, hypocritical arseholes who will do whatever is in their self-interest, and continue to think that they are ethical.<\/li>\n
  35. I am human.<\/li>\n
  36. Therefore, I will sue for slander or libel anyone who completes this syllogism, and for copyright infringement anyone who copies it without permission.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In which Julian wades in on the conservative<\/em> side of the piracy debate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-influencing-others"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1392"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1416,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1392\/revisions\/1416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}