(1) when media has stipulations attached to its distribution that you agree to when you purchase access to the media (specifically the stipulation that you're unable to share the media with others), and
(2) both breaking agreements you've made as well as knowingly benefitting from someone else breaking agreements are immoral,
(C) you must therefore agree that piracy of content with said stipulations (most mainstream content) is immoral!
When 1 and 2 don't apply, C doesn't apply, sure. But when 1 and 2 apply, C also applies.
I believe that any restrictions added on top of copyright, for a normal media sale, are themselves immoral.
And I believe that sometimes copyright goes too far, and that breaking it in those cases is not immoral.
So I definitely don't agree with your first postulation, and I might not agree with the second one depending on how that's interpreted.
In particular, a rule that would stop me from watching a movie with friends should never be enforced or enforceable. So a flat-out "no sharing" is not a moral rule. And a rule that stops me from sharing the movie contents when copyright has lapsed is also immoral. I feel like the average person would solidly agree with me on those two statements.
And then on top of that, I suggest a situation where it would make sense for copyright to lapse without being immoral to the creators. And while under the current legal system it doesn't lapse, that's a legal truth that doesn't dictate the morality of acting like it lapsed.
If you believe that restrictions on use of property is immoral, then you necessarily do not believe in property rights. Either someone can dictate the terms in which other people use that thing, or they do not own that thing.
That's fine, but it's not very compatible with capitalism.
> Fair use is also a restriction on the ownership. A big one. So if it's this simple, then "they do not" must be the correct answer for how the world already works.
Ownership has restrictions, and ownership on ideas has the most restrictions.
Granted, however this doesn't solve your problem with ownership. Either a person can dictate the terms of how something is used (excepting "fair use" or whatever other exceptions apply) or they do not own that thing.
No version of what you've said supplies sufficient exception to remove a person's ability to stipulate conditional use of a thing.
> Granted, however this doesn't solve your problem with ownership. Either a person can dictate the terms of how something is used (excepting "fair use" or whatever other exceptions apply) or they do not own that thing.
Fair use is a whole category. And there's also public domain, eventually.
I could definitely frame my suggestion, for downloading when purchase is unavailable, as a type of fair use or public domain, or something in between.
If it's fair use, does that make it compatible with ownership?
I think it's compatible with ownership.
> No version of what you've said supplies sufficient exception to remove a person's ability to stipulate conditional use of a thing.
Are you familiar with the first sale doctrine? You are largely not allowed to stipulate conditional use of media you are selling.
You get the tools copyright gives you, and that's it.
There's no definition of "fair use" that would allow someone to agree not to share something, then deliberately break that agreement and have their action be moral.
This goes beyond digital/physical goods, and beyond copyright. You give your word as part of the agreement of sale that you won't do something, except you then go and do that very thing. That is not a moral act.
The right to distribute as granted by the first sale doctrine ends, however, once the owner has sold that particular copy. So you can torrent one seed's worth of a copyrighted work, then you must delete your copy.
And it is not a moral act to agree to terms you believe are immoral and then deliberately break them. Two wrongs don't make a right.
First sale doctrine applies to the rights that are automatically transferred when you sell a copy.
We're talking about the rights people get when they buy copies, aren't we? Aren't you implying a situation like someone buying a bluray and uploading it to the internet?
> And it is not a moral act to agree to terms you believe are immoral and then deliberately break them. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Mmmmm, I think it depends on how immoral the terms actually are.
Yes, sorry, I was wrong and have since edited. The first sale doctrine does not prevent someone from limiting the distribution of a work beyond that original copy, however. It only grants the right to sell, display, or otherwise dispose. It's not a blanket "owner can't stop you from doing anything" cover.
And for our purposes, the consequences of not consuming a work does not rise to whatever level may be necessary for duplicity to be justified. Viewing a movie is almost never worth lying over, based on any cultural norms I'm familiar with.
Right, I see your change to talk about a single upload.
Well, the reason I mentioned first sale doctrine was because it puts massive restrictions on what the copyright owner is allowed to demand in a contract, not because it allows pirating in particular.
Because my argument is that we could place a couple additional restrictions on copyright without violating the concept of ownership.
It's already heavily restricted. A little bit more restriction wouldn't break things.
And because it makes it far less likely they would try to ask for a direct no sharing promise, or that they would be allowed to ask for that. So the moral dilemma of lying won't be a problem.
> This would break digital ownership specifically, as you wouldn't be in control of their copies, which are trivial to make.
Why is "people can copy it for critique" compatible with ownership, and "people can copy it after a certain number of years" compatible with ownership, but "people can copy it when you're done selling it, or in places you won't sell it" not compatible with ownership?
I really don't understand.
> Besides, you agreed not to do this! That's the immoral act. First sale doctrine or no, agreeing to not do something and then doing it is immoral.
I don't think I've ever agreed to something like that on top of copyright.
Are you applying this idea to existing media, or suggesting it would become the new normal?
And I think first sale doctrine would get in the way of a contract clause that does almost but not quite the same thing that copyright does. But I'm not an expert there.
You agree to these terms when you purchase any media, as these terms are codified in US copyright law.
If you buy media, thus agreeing to US copyright law, and then violate it, how is this a moral act?
But again, setting aside US copyright law, how would it be a moral act to agree to something and then act in opposition to that agreement (given the low stakes of what's involved here)?
> You agree to these terms when you purchase any media, as these terms are codified in US copyright law.
But I keep talking about changing copyright. Why do you act like those terms would still apply if they were changed? That's why I thought you were talking about terms on top of copyright. It's really hard for me to follow your arguments.
> But again, setting aside US copyright law, how would it be a moral act to agree to something and then act in opposition to that agreement (given the low stakes of what's involved here)?
I have never made a promise to follow the law as part of a purchase.
And I have never had the rules of copyright copy-pasted into a purchase agreement either.
It's just a given that copyright is the law.
If I break the law later, I am not breaking a promise to the seller. There is no moral failure on that front. What matters is whether breaking the law is itself immoral. It does not break any agreement.
Copyright law isn't really meaningful here as a representation of morality, it's a representation of the agreement you're making. By purchasing a work covered by US copyright law, you've implicitly agreed to abide by copyright law.
To put this another way, do you believe the owner of the work would have granted you access to the work had you been honest with your intent to engage in piracy? Do you think they'd have agreed to grant you access to the work if you weren't bound in some way to not copy their work and distribute it freely?
If no to either, then you've used deception to gain access to that work and this is an immoral act, which is extended when someone uses your immoral act to themselves gain access to the work.
They probably wouldn't want to sell it to me if I was going to leave a bad review, either. That doesn't mean I deceived them.
But wow this is such a tangent from the original argument. This is just to argue that all pirated copies are tainted by deception because of the original sale? Because that's making a lot of assumptions. What if the first person to upload it bought a used copy? Or what if they bought it for personal use, then ten years later realized sales had been shut down and uploaded their copy to share with a new generation? There's lots of plausible ways for this to happen without even a hint of deception.
(Not that one deception for a giant pile of downloaders is even a big deal in the first place.)
Regardless of the length of the chain of custody over the work, you always know the copyright holder would not have agreed to part with a copy of their work if they had known it would be further duplicated, so you can't really ever claim ignorance.
And I think it does mean you've deceived them if some law were in place and thus the expectation were in place that prohibited you from leaving a bad review. However, no such law exists, and therefore no such expectation exists.
(and yeah, I'm definitely not saying people are murdering puppies here. I have for sure pirated movies and TV shows, I just don't try to justify it -- I'm a tiny bit of a bad person!).
> Regardless of the length of the chain of custody over the work, you always know the copyright holder would not have agreed to part with a copy of their work if they had known it would be copied, so you can't really ever claim ignorance.
Ignorance of what in particular?
If you bought from the original seller, and didn't know your purchase would enable piracy, then you can claim ignorance that your purchase would enable piracy. And you can correctly claim you weren't deceiving anyone.
And deception definitely isn't retroactive.
> (and yeah, I'm definitely not saying people are murdering puppies here. I have for sure pirated movies and TV shows, I just don't try to justify it -- I'm a tiny bit of a bad person!).
I just think this is going way too far to claim immorality.
I disagree that one act of deception taints all further access, and it's quite easy to reach a piracy situation without deceiving anyone.
It's irrelevant who the original purchaser is; the fact that they conducted the purchase under the rule of copyright law determines they consented to that copyright law, as the seller would not have sold them the copy of the work had they not consented. From there, you can know this holds true regardless of how many times the copy of the work passes through possession.
And I wonder if you consider immorality to be some major defining concern. I don't, and I believe my interpretation is the prevalent one in philosophy. In fact, it's rare to meet someone who believes all immoral acts are equally immoral, and I am not one of those people.
It is not a death sentence to knowingly commit an immoral act; you're not fighting for your life here. It's just a song/movie/whatever, and the harm caused is infinitesimal. The stakes are profoundly low! But that doesn't eliminate the stakes -- they do exist.
I don't think morality is super important for small matters like this, but also I think "The seller likely would have refused the sale, multiple transactions ago, if they had perfect knowledge of the future" is miles away from making something deceptive or immoral. If the major reasons for calling piracy immoral are eliminated in some situation, and the worry of deception is the only one left, then piracy is not immoral in that situation.
(1) when media has stipulations attached to its distribution that you agree to when you purchase access to the media (specifically the stipulation that you're unable to share the media with others), and
(2) both breaking agreements you've made as well as knowingly benefitting from someone else breaking agreements are immoral,
(C) you must therefore agree that piracy of content with said stipulations (most mainstream content) is immoral!
When 1 and 2 don't apply, C doesn't apply, sure. But when 1 and 2 apply, C also applies.