22 Feb
2006
22 Feb
'06
11:27 p.m.
On Wed, 2006-02-22 at 06:14 +0000, peter wrote:
On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 20:03 -0600, Jan Depner wrote:
Wrong. Legally, without copyright there is no plagiarism (morally
there is). If you do not copyright and you place in the public domain I
can do anything I want with what you have written. But even excepting
that, how about I don't put my name on it but Britney Spears (gag) likes
it and makes it her latest hit and she rakes in a couple of million on
it. Sorry, no copyright, no money. Is this not theft of the most
heinous sort?
On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 17:23 -0800, Kjetil S.
Matheussen wrote:
to be fair, you are now talking about plagiarism, which encompasses and
surpasses copyright infringement. falsely claiming to be the author
of someone elses work for some definable gain is not what Kjetil is
talking about.
But why do you consider it stealing?
I just can't resist this. Please
send me a copy of your latest
song, novel, whatever. I'll post it on the internet with my name as
author then we'll come back to this discussion of why Lee and I think
that copyright infringement is stealing. Is this really that difficult
to understand??? <opinion>
Personally, i would define theft as when someone takes something from
the owner of that item so that the owner no longer has it.
as such, there is a quantifiable difference in the respective outcomes
of copyright infringement and theft. which is probably why they called
it copyright infringement and not simply theft.
in cases of copyright infringement, the owner loses the chance to gain.
in instances of theft, the owner is guaranteed a loss.
so imo, the distinction between the two terms is merited for
quantifiable reasons and stealing is on balance, more serious than
copyright infringement. (i'm not talking about counterfitting either)
<opinion/>
i have a question for you though, would you take widespread copyright
infringement over pervasive DRM (and it's associated outcomes)?
it's a moot question, we're gonna get DRM. but it's not a trick
question. i'm genuinely interested to know your opinon on this as i see
no other way for unit based sales of media to thrive without DRM.
(assuming copyright infringement is such a serious problem that is)
I really think that DRM is a dead issue. Media companies will place
it on their product, when the general unwashed public finds that they
can't play their CD/DVD/whatever wherever they feel like there will be a
huge backlash. These companies cannot piss off their customers too much
without losing them. Historically this has always been the case with
disruptive technologies. Check out the history of Henry Ford and the
patents on automobile engines (including lawsuits of Ford customers over
patent infringement in their Ford motors).
--
Jan 'Evil Twin' Depner
The Fuzzy Dice
http://myweb.cableone.net/eviltwin69/fuzzy.html
"As we enjoy great advantages from the invention of others, we should be
glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and
this we should do freely and generously."
Benjamin Franklin, on declining patents offered by the governor of
Pennsylvania for his "Pennsylvania Fireplace", c. 1744