merc comments on Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing"

Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing" (pluralistic.net)

submitted 2 years ago by kpw@kbin.social to c/technology@lemmy.world

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The ability to change features, prices, and availability of things you've already paid for is a powerful temptation to corporations.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Intellectual property is a scam, the term was invented to convince dumb people that a government-granted monopoly on the expression of an idea is the same thing as "property".

You can't "steal" intellectual property, you can only infringe on someone's monopoly rights.

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[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

This feels like an easy statement to make when it applies to Disney putting out new Avatar movies. Then, suddenly, you realize how extensively it causes problems when you're a photographer trying to get magazines to pay for copies of the once-in-a-lifetime photo you took, instead of re-printing it without your permission.

"InfORMaTioN wANts tO Be FrEe, yO."

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[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

Then, suddenly, you realize how extensively it causes problems when you’re a photographer trying to get magazines to pay for copies of the once-in-a-lifetime photo you took

That's a pretty specific example. Probably because in many cases photographers are paid in advance. A wedding photographer doesn't show up at the wedding, take a lot of pictures, then try to work out a deal with the couple getting married. They negotiate a fee before the wedding, and when the wedding is over they turn over the pictures in exchange for the money. Other photographers work on a salary.

Besides, even with your convoluted, overly-specific example, even without a copyright, a magazine would probably pay for the photo. Even if they didn't get to control the copying of the photo, they could still get the scoop and have the picture out before other people. In your world, how would they "reprint" it without your permission? Would they break into your house and sneakily download it from your phone or camera?

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[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

This is the kind of situation I’m citing:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/09/one-mans-endless-hopeless-struggle-to-protect-his-copyrighted-images/

A lot of photography is not based on planning ahead before being paid (a person requests Photo X, and then pays on delivery). Nature photographers, and in fact many other forms of artists, produce a work before people know/feel they want it, and then sell it based on demonstration - a media outlet notices their work in a gallery or on their website, and then requests use of that work themselves.

The struggles of the above insect photographer are even with the existing IP laws - they only ask for fair compensation from what they’ve put so much effort into, and VERY MANY media outlets don’t bother; to say nothing of giving a charitable donation.

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[–] merc@sh.itjust.works -1 points 2 years ago (1 child)

then sell it based on demonstration - a media outlet notices their work in a gallery or on their website

So, they choose to rely on copyright, when they could do work for hire instead.

they only ask for fair compensation from what they’ve put so much effort into

No, they ask for unfair compensation based on copyrights.

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[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

No - they CAN’T do work for hire. Are you listening?

“Hi. I do really cool photos. Please hire me to take one, and after you’ve paid me, you can see it.”

According to you, that’s a comprehensive resume and advertisement for a photographer, absent of a single graphic. According to you, a client could come to a consult about buying a photo, sneak their phone camera up to the print, and say “Never mind about payment! I just copied it. You can keep the print! So long, loser.”

You’re not even trying to imagine the impossible hurdles such a craft would have trying to earn enough to eat food every day, much less have a roof over their head. If you have nothing substantive to add, everyone on this site should be done with you.

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[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 0 points 2 years ago

No - they CAN’T do work for hire. Are you listening?

Your inability to imagine anything other than the status quo is really depressing.

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[–] bane_killgrind@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

Imagine if startrek was written with IP in mind. Instead of all these wunderkinds being all gung ho about implementing their warp field improvements on your reactor you'd get some ferengi shilling the latest and greatest "marketable" blech engine improvements.

Fiction is much better without reality leeching in.

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[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 years ago

Star Trek was set in a future utopia. One of the key things about the show is that it's a post-scarcity world where even physical objects can be replicated.

They definitely wrote the series with IP in mind... in that their view of a future utopia was one where not only did copyright etc. not exist, but nobody cared much about the ownership of physical objects either.

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[+] helenslunch@feddit.nl -7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

[deleted]

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[–] TootGuitar@reddthat.com 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

For someone who bitches all over this thread about people strawmanning their position, this is a pretty fucking great reply.

Hint: one can be pissed about people throwing around the not-based-in-legal-reality term “intellectual property.” One can be pissed about people using it as part of a strategy to purposely confuse the public into thinking that copyright infringement is the same as theft, a strategy which has apparently worked mightily well on you. One can be all of those things, and yet still feel that copyright infringement is wrong and no one should be entitled to “literally everything someone else creates.”

What you posted was a textbook definition of a straw man.

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[+] helenslunch@feddit.nl -2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

[deleted]

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[–] TootGuitar@reddthat.com 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I don’t know how the original poster meant it, but one possible way to interpret it (which is coincidentally my opinion) is that the concept of intellectual property is a scam, but the underlying actual legal concepts are not. Meaning, the law defines protections for copyrights, trademarks, patents, and trade secrets, and each of those has their uses and are generally not “scams,” but mixing them all together and packaging them up into this thing called intellectual property (which has no actual legal basis for its existence) is the scam. Does that make sense?

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[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 1 point 2 years ago

Exactly, "intellectual property" doesn't exist. It's a term that was created to try to lump together various unrelated government-granted rights: trademark, copyright, patents, etc. They're all different, and the only thing they have in common is that they're all rights granted by the government. None of them is property though. That was just a clever term made up by a clever lobbyist to convince people to think of them as property, rather than government-granted rights related to the copying of ideas. Property is well-understood, limited government-granted rights to control the copying of ideas is less well understood. If the lobbyists can get people to think of "intellectual property" they've won the framing of the issue.

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