Copyright rewards authors, which in turn, rewards the public.

You are, once again, missing the point – the point that you keep bringing up, incessantly, in nearly every single thread on this site.

The point is that the ethical good that is being done, is not because the rights themselves are moral, but because the rights may promote an ethical end.

Think of it this way. The government grants tax breaks to corporations who donate money to charity. But they do not do it because “granting tax breaks to corporations is ethical.” It’s not even because donating money to charities is, itself, ethical. It’s because the charities do ethical acts. And this would be true, even if Congress decided that the best way to promote charity donations is to institute those tax breaks as “property rights.”

It is exactly the same with copyright law. The rights granted to authors are not, in and of themselves, ethical in nature. Their ethical value must be evaluated against the good that the rights are designed to promote: the public benefit (however you choose to interpret “benefit”).

But if you disagree, and claim it is the rights themselves that are a priori ethical, then again, they are ethical regardless of whether they are recognized by law. You then have no option but to claim I acted unethically when I downloaded “Night of the Living Dead.”

You did not – which means that you do not believe those “rights” are an ethical imperative, either.

The two cannot be separated since the theory is that one leads to the other.

Of course the two can be separated, if the theory is wrong. If rewarding authors does not lead to greater public benefit, then they should be separated.

And this is not an ethical determination, but a factual one. Do the rights granted to authors in fact lead to a wider dissemination of works? Do they in fact incentivize artists to create more works? Do they in fact function as “the engine of free expression?”

Most importantly for you, does infringement of these rights in fact lead to a reduction in any of these goals? Would working with infringement achieve these goals better than working against infringement?

These are the sorts of questions that Techdirt deals with. It deals with them by examining evidence, not through faith-based acceptance of the theory. And according to the evidence, the theory is in fact wrong.

“Deserve rewards.” Mazer v. Stein.

Put in the context of the rest of the text, Mazer v. Stein does not seem to be saying what you claim it is: that one purpose of copyright is to reward the “sweat of the brow” of authors. That argument is explicitly denied in Feist v. Rural, among many other cases. In fact, see the very first U.S. copyright case, Wheaton v. Peters: “The argument that a literary man is as much entitled to the product of his labor as any other member of society cannot be controverted. And the answer is that he realizes this product in the sale of his works when first published.”

Regardless: even if you believe that artists “deserve rewards,” that is not the same as saying infringement is unethical. You would be saying it was unethical if it does not reward artists.

In other words: if an artist’s “rights” are violated, but that “violation” leads to greater rewards, then that “violation” is not unethical.

That’s if you accept the “sweat of the brow” argument for copyright, of course. And if you do accept this argument, it once again leads to the conclusion that downloading “Night of the Living Dead” is unethical, unless I “reward” Romero.

Just because it’s an “evil” doesn’t mean it’s moral to violate the right once granted. “It’s evil” is not a defense to copyright infringement, legally or morally.

Not only is it a defense morally, it is an ethical obligation. If that evil is tolerated in order to promote a good, but it does not in fact promote that good, then all we are left with is an evil. In order to be ethical, we are obligated to remove that evil.

At the very least, it is in no way unethical to act against that evil. The only possible way it would be unethical is if it acted against the good that is supposed to be promoted by that evil. Otherwise, you don’t have a righteous leg to stand on, and you’ll fall off your soapbox.

And if the law does not recognize this, then the law is unethical. Ethically, it doesn’t matter if artists’ statutory rights are violated. It doesn’t matter if downloading a movie for free is infringement or not. It only matters if it acts against the public benefit.

You have already stated that the act of downloading a movie for free, in and of itself, is ethical. So until you actually show evidence that preventing this ethical act provides a greater public benefit, you have no right to get on your high horse.

Access and dissemination are not the only issues in play. A person can get a copyright and then decide to lock up the work, never disseminating it to anyone.

This is a gross misstatement. “It is said that reward to the author or artist serves to induce release to the public of the products of his creative genius” (United States v. Paramount Pictures). “By establishing a marketable right to the use of one?s expression, copyright supplies the economic incentive to create and disseminate ideas” (Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises). “Creative work is to be encouraged and rewarded, but private motivation must ultimately serve the cause of promoting broad public availability of literature, music, and the other arts” (Twentieth Century Music v. Aiken). “The Constitution of the U. S. has limited [monopolies] to two cases, the authors of Books, and of useful inventions, in both which they are considered as a compensation for a benefit actually gained to the community as a purchase of property which the owner might otherwise withold from public use” (James Madison). Congress thought the CTEA would “provide copyright owners generally with the incentive to restore older works and further disseminate them to the public.” And so forth.

Yes, copyright is fixed at the moment of creation, not publication. But it was fixed at the moment of publication until the Copyright Act of 1976. This is mainly so artists have the “right of first publication.” Historically, this has always been seen as distinct from copyright. See, again, Mazer v. Stein: “Congress may, after publication, protect by copyright any writing of an author. Its statute creates the copyright. It did not exist at common law even though he had a property right in his unpublished work.” Or, see Wheaton v. Peters: “That an author at common law has a property in his manuscript, and may obtain redress against anyone who deprives him of it or by obtaining a copy endeavors to realize a profit by its publication cannot be doubted, but this is a very different right from that which asserts a perpetual and exclusive property in the future publication of the work after the author shall have published it to the world.”

The language of the statutes certainly implies that publication is the goal. The very definition of “fixed” is “sufficiently permanent or stable to permit it to be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated for a period of more than transitory duration.” The (very recently enacted) criminal laws against “leaking” works, specifically cover “the distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution.”

And if copyright really was about anything other than “access and dissemination,” we would not have such things as statutory royalty rates.

Yes, an artist may never disseminate his work to the public. But he certainly doesn’t need copyright to do that, and one of copyright’s purposes is to discourage this.

If it was only about access, then giving people the right to deny access is a silly way to accomplish that end.

Then you’re arguing against the theory of copyright. I happen to agree, it is silly, and that’s why copyright doesn’t work. At least not anymore.

I forgot to add this to the mix: the Visual Artists Rights Act, which recognizes moral rights for artists.

That was enacted as a result of the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988, which (as you might guess) happened so that the U.S. could legally sign the Berne Convention.

And notice what those “moral rights” entail. They are the right to “claim authorship,” and to “prevent any intentional distortion, mutilation, or other modification of that work which would be prejudicial to his or her honor or reputation.” Furthermore, they “shall not apply to any reproduction, depiction, portrayal, or other use of a work” – only to the original artwork.

This generally tracks what “moral rights” are in the other (primarily European) countries that have them. They are completely distinct from the “economic rights” in those countries. They cannot be waived, nor transferred to any other party (except by inheritance). In about half of the countries that adopt them, even the term lengths are different. And they only cover things like the “right to attribution” and the “right to integrity” – rights that, here in the U.S., are generally covered by libel and slander laws.

They are, in other words, the equivalent of CC-BY. (Intentionally: it’s actually how CC wrote its BY legal code, and the reason that CC-BY is the least restrictive CC license that is globally enforcable).

And they have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with piracy.

You seem so set on denying that copyright is at all about rewarding authors, but the fact is it’s about rewarding authors which in turns rewards the public.

And you are so set on denying that copyright is all about benefitting the public, that you deny that copyright even can be about anything other than “violating artists’ rights.” You deny that any other viewpoint even could be ethical.

You are so single-mindedly focused on this that you viciously insult anyone who dares to even ask whether those “rights” do, in fact, result in any benefit to the public whatsoever. You are so in denial that enforcing those rights even could be unethical, that you ignore every violation of due process, free speech, or free enterprise. You chortle with glee at cruel and unusual punishments for even minor offenses, as long as the victims of those punishments are “pirates.” You are so focused on artists enforcing their rights, that you don’t even care when enforcing those rights actually harms artists. And you call everyone who is not as narrow-minded as you a “lying slimeball.”

And to justify all this, the only real argument you have put forth is a tautology. “Unlawful infringement is evil because it is unlawful infringement.” This is quite literally the only thing you have said in the entire thread.

Make no mistake about it. You have not behaved ethically here. You have not shown that you even have an understanding of what “ethical” actually means.

I know my post was already way too long-winded, but since we’ve got a huge discussion on ethics going on here, I felt I also needed to point something out.

We’ve all been talking about the “right to exclude.” But really, this is just a legal euphemism. In fact, what is granted to authors is the “right to punish.”

Copyright doesn’t actually prevent others from doing anything. It only allows artists the right to punish others who do not obey the copyright holder’s rules of exclusion.

It grants them the right to sue me for hundreds of thousands of dollars, put me into bankruptcy, ruin my business, and destroy my life and the lives of my dependents, all for creating or distributing my own copy of a work that he authored. Even if I don’t actually do any of this myself, the copyright holder is allowed to do these things if I just “contribute to” others doing it. They can do these things to me even if I never intended to make a profit.

If those acts are (rather arbitrarily) deemed criminal offenses, it additionally grants the right to the government to kidnap me at gunpoint, take all my property, throw me in a cell, and keep me locked up with murderers and rapists for years on end, all in the author’s name.

This is what we are defending when we defend copyright law. It’s important that we never forget that.

In case it wasn’t obvious, that was me. Don’t know how I got signed out.

All of my discussions with Karl suffer from this same problem. It’s like debating a brick wall. If you prove his point wrong, rather than concede it he’ll go off on a bunch of tangents.

If I go off on a bunch of tangents, it’s only because I’m replying to points that were raised by other people in the debate. But you’re right. This has gotten off track. We were not talking about Colonial history, nor about the legislative history of copyright.

We were talking about ethics. So let’s get back to that.

For the sake of argument, let’s say you’re right about the monopoly right in expression being an innate “property” right, and that if I infringe on this right by creating or distributing my own copies without authorization, then I am “stealing” this property. And let’s say that this property right is a priori ethical (though you’ve never said why it should be ethical).

So, once again, I ask you: How could it possibly be ethical for me to download a copy of “Night of the Living Dead?” After all, I am “stealing” Romero’s property. The fact that I am doing it without breaking the law tells us nothing about the ethics of the act – only that the law is unjust.

How is it that you can believe it’s evil to infringe on the author’s property rights in one instance, but absolutely ethical to to infringe on the author’s property rights in another?

You have never given me an answer to this. And, frankly, I don’t think you even can.

I, personally, have never been conflicted this issue. I don’t believe that copyright is a form of “property,” in the Lockean sense. “Stealing” this form of “property” is not a priori unethical. It is, in fact, accomplishing the only ethical thing that copyright itself even could accomplish: the widespread distribution of works to the public.

That does not mean I believe it is legal. It does not even mean I believe it should be legal; we often tolerate restrictions on ethical acts, if it achieves a greater good overall. It means that I believe it is a necessary evil. And that, therefore, it should be as limited as possible to achieve its ethical goals.

But you, obviously, do not believe that. You believe it is so unethical, that people should have their property taken away, be sued into bankruptcy, have their businesses destroyed, and possibly taken at gunpoint and thrown in jail. You believe that it is so unethical, that prosecuting it deserves more exemptions from due process and prior restraint than other forms of unlawful speech. You believe it is so unethical, that it should be punished even if authors benefit from it.

And you believe that piracy is so unethical, it entitles you to act like an asshole to everyone who disagrees with you. You have – consistently – mucked up numerous threads on this site with personal insults, called the Techdirt authors “slimebags” and “liars” and “cowards,” because their personal ethical views don’t view piracy as unethical enough for you.

I’ll gladly address the rest of your points, but I want to see if we can reach a consensus on the issue of whether the framers held Lockean views about copyright.

Well, keep in mind that this was the idea I was rebutting: “To our Founders, men had a just and equitable right to their property; intellectual property was no different.”

It is absolutely true that many Colonial governments held a “natural rights” view of copyright. But it would be an overstatment to say they considered it a Lockean form of property; generally they used wording like “the Sole privilege.” Nor would it be accurate to say that this is the reason copyright laws were enacted. For example, nearly all had various registration requirements, and about half had an explicit legal requirement that the author release “a sufficient number of copies” to the public “at reasonable prices.” Nearly all of the bills creating the statutes had titles like “A Bill to Advance Learning and the Sciences.”

It’s interesting to keep in mind that prior to 1783, general copyright statutes did not exist. Individual authors had to petition the colonial governments to pass bills granting them private monopolies on specific works. But this is another one of my tangents.

In any case, talking about Colonial law is not the same as talking about the Founding Fathers.

To do that, we have to look to the Founders that were involved in the Copyright Clause. Most simply didn’t give a rat’s ass; the original draft didn’t even contain one at all. The only ones that I know about were Charles Pinckney, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson. We only know Pickney cared because he introduced an earlier draft; as far as I know, he never wrote about his reasoning.

Madison and Jefferson we’ve already heard from once, but this exchange may clear things up:

The saying there shall be no monopolies lessens the incitements to ingenuity, which is spurred on by the hope of a monopoly for a limited time, as of 14 years; but the benefit even of limited monopolies is too doubtful to be opposed to that of their general suppression.
– Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, July 31, 1788

With regard to monopolies they are justly classified among the greatest nuisances in Government. But is it clear that as encouragements to literary works and ingenious discoveries, they are not too valuable to be wholly renounced? Would it not suffice to reserve in all cases a right to the Public to abolish the privilege at a price to be specified in the grant of it? Is there not also infinitely less danger of this abuse in our Governments, than in most others? Monopolies are sacrifices of the many to the few. Where the power is in the few it is natural for them to sacrifice the many to their own partialities and corruptions. Where the power, as with us, is in the many and not in the few, the danger can not be very great that the few will be thus favored. It is much more to be dreaded that the few will be unnecessarily sacrificed to the many.
– James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, October 17, 1788

Madison himself wrote two proposed versions of the Copyright Clause: “to secure to literary authors their copyrights for a limited time,” and “to encourage, by proper premiums & Provisions, the advancement of useful knowledge and discoveries.”

These are not the words of people talking about some Lockean view of private property. They are not creating the Copyright Clause due to some utilitarian notion of a “just and equitable right.”

However, while researching this post, I ran across a quote from Thomas Paine: “It may, with propriety, be remarked, that in all countries where literature is protected (and it cannot flourish where it is not), the works of an author are his legal property; and to treat letters in any other light than this, is to banish them from the country, or strangle them at birth.”

So, that’s one founding father who did think of copyright fundamentally in terms of Lockean property. However, he had nothing to do with the Copyright Clause.

It’s also of note that a few of the Founders (e.g. Ben Franklin) were themselves “pirates” of English books. It would be hard to believe that they held some sort of “natural rights” view of copyright, where authors had “a just and equitable right to their property.”

Let’s just say this. For the most part, the Founders did not consider copyright to be exactly the same as Locke’s notion of private property.

Some of them did. Some of them believed copyright was an author’s “property,” but of a different sort. Some of them did not think of copyright as any form of property at all. Some believed copyright should exist to guarantee a “just reward” for the fruits of their labors. Some believed that copyright should exist solely to serve the public interest.

The only thing that is categorically true, is that they all believed knowledge and learning would be advanced by providing authors with a special reward for their labors.

And absolutely none of this has anything to do with whether current copyright law is ethical.

Is that a good enough answer?

Before you claimed categorically that no Founder held a Lockean view of copyright. Now you admit that some did. If we can get you to “almost all did” we’ll be there.

I was not claiming categorically that no Founder held a Lockean view of copyright. The statement I was refuting was that all Founders did have a Lockean view of copyright. The A.C. seemed to be saying that the Lockean view of copyright as private property, and the “fruits of labor” view that Locke held, were universally accpted among the Founders. Perhaps I misunderstood his intent, but if that is what he meant, it is something I will still categorically reject.

I’ll concede the point that most of the states’ copyright laws were justified, partially or mainly, by a Lockean “natural rights” standpoint, due mainly to the arguments of Joel Barlow. I will also concede that the Continental Congress report, being directly influenced by Barlow, espoused this view as well.

I will also concede this point. In general, Revolutionary law did not see any conflict between the “natural rights” view of copyright, and the “public good” view of copyright. Most statutes at the time espoused both views.

But I won’t concede that about the majority of Founders unless you can actually show me passages written by those Founders themselves. Madison, for example, was actually in the committee that wrote the Continental Congress report – but saying he held a Lockean “natural rights” view of copyright would be, at best, an oversimplification.

And when it comes to the Continental Convention in Philadelphia, the viewpoint of everyone involved was that copyright was a monopoly, not any sort of property right. Examples:

I like it as far as it goes; but I should have been for going further. For instance, the following alterations and additions would have pleased me. […] Art. 9. Monopolies may be allowed to persons for their own productions in literature and their own inventions in the arts for a term not exceeding __ years but for no longer term and for no other purpose. […] These restrictions I think are so guarded as to hinder evil only. However if we do not have them now, I have so much confidence in our countrymen as to be satisfied that we shall have them as soon as the degeneracy of our government shall render them necessary.
– Thomas Jefferson to James Madison

As to those monopolies, which, by way of premiums, are granted for certain years to ingenious discoveries in medicine, machines and useful arts; they are common in all countries, and more necessary in this, as the government has no resources to reward extraordinary merit.
– Rev. Nicholas Cottin, Remarks on the Amendments to the Federal Constitution

I have just been reading Smith on the Wealth of Nations & he has taught me to look with an unfavorable eye on monopolies – But a monopoly of the mental kind I take to be laudable & an exception to the Rule.
– James Kent to Nathaniel Lawrence

[M]onopolies in trade or arts, other than to authors of books or inventors of useful arts, for a reasonable time, ought not to be suffered.
– “Centinel,” from Pennsylvania, quoted in “The Documentary History Of The Constitution Of The United States Of America”

So, while the “natural rights” argument was certainly espoused in the state statutes, as well as in the report of the Continental Congress, it does not appear to have played any role whatsoever in the debate surrounding the Copyright Clause itself.

Additionally, the first Federal Copyright Act was entitled “An Act for the encouragement of learning,” and did not mention authors’ “natural rights” at all.

And in any case, the “natural rights” view (also called the “common law copyright” view) was laid to rest in Wheaton v. Peters. But this is probably another tangent.

And, again, none of this has anything to do with ethics. Even if I did concede that all the Founders held the view that copyright was based on Lockean views of “natural rights,” or “equitable justice,” or whatever, that does not mean that the Founders were correct, or that their viewpoints were moral. We are currently arguing about history, not ethics.

I think he’s directly avoiding answering

He has answered. Many times. You’ve even acknowledged his answer: he, personally, believes it’s unethical because it goes against the wishes of artists.

Just because you don’t like the answer, doesn’t mean he hasn’t given you one. And just because you don’t agree with his answer, does not mean that his answer is unethical.

And FYI, he stated his position before you even asked him. And you know this, because I quoted them to you.

Aside from his personal ethics, he claims that copyright is fundamentally not an ethical issue. This is not dodging the question, it’s saying it’s the wrong question to ask. And he is correct. It is fundamentally an economic issue.

he never explains why it’s moral to violate someone’s economic right

This is a totally idiotic statement.

1. There is no such thing as an “economic right.” Prices are set because of supply and demand, not because there’s a “right” to that price. The number of products produced is determined by marginal analysis, not because there is a “right” to produce that number of products. Nobody has a “right” to make a profit. And so on.

2. Even if you believe there are “economic rights,” there’s no way in Hell that a government-enforced monopoly is one of them.

3. Even if you believe it is, the statement is irrelevant, because Mike never claimed it was “moral” to “violate” that right.

4. Even if you believe that’s what he’s talking about, he gave you a reason right in the quote to believe it is ethically moral: “there’s the greatest overall economic good and everyone has the greatest opportunity to benefit.” Only an idiot would claim this stance is immoral.

Admitting the fact that is illegal does not mean that he thinks it to be immoral.

I meant both the fact that he thought it was illegal, and the fact that he believes it goes against the wishes of artists. Obviously.

It’s too bad he won’t discuss these issues. Wonder what he’s so scared of?

He does discuss these issues. Just not with you, because you’ve done nothing but an asshole.

And it’s incredibly hypocritical to say he “won’t discuss these issues,” when you won’t discuss them, either.

In this entire thread, you haven’t discussed ethics. You sidestep the issue by going off on tangents about legal statutes or colonial history. In fact, you are sidestepping the issue right now. You are attacking Mike’s viewpoints, in order to avoid talking about your own.

I’ve indulged you thus far, but no longer. No more talking about Mike. No more talking about the law. No more talking about history. From here on out, we are talking only about ethics, and about your ethics in particular.

In this entire thread, the only justification for your ethical viewpoint is that something is bad because the government says so. That is not an ethical answer; it is a defense of totalitarianism.

So, are you finally going to say why your viewpoint is ethical, or not?

Apologies – I see it now.

I’ll get back to you on it.

…You know something? This is pointless.

I personally think your view of copyright is both unethical and contradictory.

But you presented it. I don’t agree with it, but neither of us is going to change each others’ minds.

So, I’m going to drop this conversation.

Well, okay, maybe just one more… (famous last words.)

Anyways, I have a couple of questions to clarify some things in my mind. (and if you have already covered this somewhere already I apologize, this is one long ass thread)

I believe you have stated (I thought it was in thread somewhere, but I can’t’ find it) that there is a difference to you between infringement for personal use and commercial infringement. How does this fit into your view of copyright and where is your personal “line in the sand” between the two?

I did state this. Here’s a link to the comment. I realize my views could be misconstrued, so I’ll explain them better here.

I do believe it is immoral for someone else to make money directly off my art, without compensation, unless I grant permission. But the ethical problem isn’t my “loss” of potential income; it’s someone else gaining income directly from my work. This is because it is immoral to exploit other people for profit. It is the same reason that slavery or child labor is wrong, and that minimum wage laws are necessary. It is also the reason that major labels act immorally to artists.

But it is absolutely not because I hold some sort of Lockean “property right” in copies of my work. I do not have any such right, and never did. In fact, thinking of copyright as the same kind of “property” as a car or a table is a priori immoral. Most especially the Lockean view of property as “the products of your labor” – that because I put labor into producing artwork, reproductions of that artwork are my property.

This is absurd on its face, but it also leads to a huge number of ethical wrongs: the loss of first sale rights, the obliteration of fair use, the inhibition of educational uses, control of use by libraries, the ability to block free expression, the ability to enforce shortages of my work, perpetual copyright, etc. And these are just the evils done by granting Lockean copyright; far more result from their enforcement. All of this so that I could theoretically gain a financial return for my labor.

In other words, it would allow me to exploit others for profit. This is exactly why commercial infringement is immoral in the first place. Furthermore, commercial piracy exploits artists like me, but the wrongs I listed exploit everyone. Anyone who holds a Lockean property view of copyright is defending behavior that is more immoral than commercial piracy.

The Lockean position also assumes that a property right is the “return for my labor” that best serves my self-interest. This is absolutely not the case. Artwork is unlike other goods, in that an increase in supply actually increases demand. The wider the distribution to the public, the more valuable the artwork becomes to the public. I can more easily turn this value into financial gain. If I am an artist, it is in my own self-interest to see that the works get distributed to the public as widely as possible. Treating copyright as property acts against this self-interest. Adopting a Lockean position on copyright works against gaining a “fair and just return for my labor.”

All this, quite obviously, could not apply to non-commercial copying and distribution. Someone who gets a copy of my art for free is not exploiting me for profit. It’s doubtful that they’re “exploiting” me at all, even if they do it for selfish reasons. (If I thought they were exploiting me, it should certainly be my burden to prove it.) Furthermore, many of the ethical goods I listed above (library use, educational use, etc) are non-commercial in nature. Treating non-commercial infringement as “exploitation” would allow me to erode or destroy these ethical goods for the sake of profit, and I would be little better than a Lockean.

Of course, non-commercial copying and distribution also serves my self-interest by helping to create value in my work. So it is not only ethical from a social standpoint, but from an author’s standpoint as well.

Also note that “secondary infringement” is generally not immoral. If a record label sells my album without paying me, the record label is exploiting me. But the bank that handles the label’s money is not exploiting me. The magazine that accepts an ad from the label is not exploiting me. Even the pressing plant that pressed the album is not exploiting me. None of these people are acting immorally.

Also note that none of this is relevant to U.S. copyright law. Copyright law is not there to defend some Lockean “sweat of the brow” property right of authors. Likewise, it is not there to prevent artists from being exploited for profit (obviously). These are generally recognized as noble and worthy, but none of this is the purpose of copyright. Copyright is there to incentivize the creation of artwork, by means of a temporary monopoly; thus serving the interests of the public by promoting science and learning.

So, the law matches the ethical goals of neither myself nor AJ.

Hope that clears things up.

It’s the fuzzier, greyer areas in between I am curious about. Where would a torrent link site fit into this?

First, the people who are actually offering my album – the users in the swarm – are not doing so for financial gain. (In fact, this is not possible using torrent sites.)

So, their behavior is not exploiting me, and is not immoral. The “torrent link site” would not be encouraging or facilitating anything that exploits me, so they would not be exploiting me either, even if they monetized it. If there is an ethical issue, it’s that the site possibly exploits its users – but I’ve never heard any user complain about e.g. The Pirate Bay.

Think about what would happen if the law actually did match my ethics. Say that non-commercial infringement was utterly legal. Would someone like The Pirate Bay be liable under the law? I think it’s clear that they would not be.

On the other hand, I am not cool with Megaupload’s practice of paying users who offer downloads (including my music.) Those users are directly gaining from my music, financially, and Megaupload is facilitating that (and themselves benefiting in the process).

Obviously, there are other issues that could be considered in this case – actual knowledge, lack of action, etc. These are the situations where DMCA “safe harbors” would come in to play, and justifiably so.

On the other hand, would the user have done such a magnitude of harm that I would sue him? Probably not. It wouldn’t be worth my time, frankly. Would I approve of other artists doing this? It would be foolish, but I wouldn’t condemn it beyond that. (I would condemn the law, though, if the settlement from that action was completely out of proportion to the user’s profits.)

A wild Modplan appeared!

It’s super effective!

Under your definition of exploitation, selling a copy of a book or song you had written to friend is exploitation as I am making money off of your work without your permission.

The moment I get paid for a copy of my book, my claim to that particular copy ends completely. I already got compensated. In fact, if I get fair compensation for that copy of my book, it wouldn’t be immoral to sell it without even asking me. I should have said “without compensation, unless you get my permission.”

Perhaps exploitation was a poor word choice. […] Exploitation implies you being taken for granted.

Perhaps it was the wrong word, but I couldn’t find anything better. “Unjust enrichment” is not bad if you read it colloquially, but it has way too much legal baggage. “Being taken for granted” seems about right. If you create copies of an album I wrote, and sell them without compensating me, I am being taken for granted.

The point is, when you talk of commercial gain as immoral, it fails to distinguish between the character of that use.

This is a good point. Obviously, commercial gain is not immoral in and of itself. Everyone needs to make a living.

The issue is not commercial gain, but that you exploited me in order to gain it. But whether something is actually “exploitation” is not exactly a hard-and-fast rule. It’s like asking if it’s immoral to pay a Ph.D. minimum wage.

Usually, questions like this would be answered by normative theories in free-market economics. And, of course, the normative free market view is “all monopolies are inefficient, thus they are always bad.” But free-market economics is not the ultimate moral authority; minimum wage laws and laws against child labor also introduce market inefficiencies, but very few would think they’re immoral.

Whether a particular use is “economic exploitation” is a hard nut to crack. Nonetheless, I think it is the right line of questioning. I also think the answer depends on the situation.

For what it’s worth, this viewpoint is surprisingly universal. Nobody really gives a shit about non-commercial file sharing; in some places, the majority believe it’s morally acceptable, and their numbers will only increase with time. But even among those people, almost nobody believes it is moral to sell copies of others’ works. And even those who think file sharing is totally wrong, think selling copies is worse.

To me at least, your use of exploitation implied a sort of trading on name or reputation, or a form of fraud, and conflated this with any selling of works.

No, that was not what I meant. I was talking about copyright as an economic monopoly on copies of works that I authored. I was not talking about fraud, plagiarism, libel, or what have you. These issues are entirely separate from copyright, though they are often conflated.

Copyright, first and foremost, is about money. That’s why it makes sense to only consider infringement for monetary gain.

If nothing else but permission makes it exploitation, then we are back at square one – it is immoral for me to sell a single copy of your song to a friend without your permission.

Did you create that copy, and hold on to the original? If so, then yes, that is immoral. If it’s just a single copy, then it’s only trivially immoral – like leaving dirty dishes in the sink for your roommate to wash.

Your example comparing Megaupload and the Pirate Bay doesn’t make much sense to me either. Both are indiscriminate.

You’re right, they are both indiscriminate; “content-neutral” as it were. But that’s not the issue. The issue is that, despite being lumped in together as “pirate sites,” they provide very different services. It’s like the difference between Amazon, and a lending library with a vending machine in the lobby. Both let you read books, and both take in money, but that’s where the similarities end.

By the way, the issue with Megaupload was not that they had a service that paid people, but that (some) users who they paid were using it to profit off of infringement. Thus the “safe harbors” stuff. If Megaupload stopped paying those users when they were properly notified that the users were infringing, then they’re in the clear, as far as I’m concerned. Even if they didn’t, it would have served everyone (including artists) better if they would have just paid civil damages, and not been shut down.

…and I really do have to leave the thread now. I’ve spent way too much time talking about this, I have a lot of studying to do.