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Title

Copying != Stealing

Description

In a recent discussion about <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/03/2159239" source="Slashdot">Bill Gates' Letter to the HCC</a><fn>, an unusually <a href="http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=176205&cid=14639895" source="Slashdot">astute comment</a> was logged by 808140<fn>. It put into clear terms the difference between copying software, media or other digital bits and the actual legal definition of <i>stealing</i>. Stealing means to deprive someone (the "owner") of something to which they have purchased title. Making a digital copy of that "something" does not in any way deprive the owner of their property, so it can hardly be called stealing, can it? <bq>What [the owner] <i>[is]</i> deprived of is a monopoly on the right to benefit from the fruits of [their] labour. ... it is important to recognize that there is <i>nothing</i> that <b>naturally</b> guarantees ... this monopoly. (emphasis added)</bq> In the physical world there is a <i>natural</i> guarantee in that a physical object can only be in one person's possession at any time; if one person has the object, the other does not. The world of ideas---be they in the form of music, writing or software---is different. Ideas and digital products can be in many places at one; once an idea has escaped, it cannot be said to "belong" only to the person that had it. The person who "copied" it possesses it just as much as the original owner. They do not <i>own</i> it legally---or even have a license to it---but it is clearly in their possession. And this all without depriving the original owner of the idea or product in any way. Of what has the owner been deprived? <bq>If you amass knowledge ... with an intent to capitalize on it, and someone copies that knowledge in its digital or written form with an intent to capitalize on it in the same way ... then you could definitely say that the person doing the copying has done something immoral---but he has not actually deprived you of the fruits of your labour.</bq> Downloading music is not stealing, it's breaking copyright. It's the acquisition of goods without compensation. In the physical world, this can be directly equated with the act of stealing---in the digital world, it can not. So what is the legal interpretation of making a digital copy without compensation? Realistically, the copier has deprived the owner of <iq>the profits that they would have had had [the copier] been forced to buy</iq> the product. This is a philosophically difficult argument to make, as the profits of which the copier has deprived the owner are purely hypothetical---just because the copier was willing to take a copy for free in no way guarantees that they would have paid the full price had the free copy not been available. It's an argument that the <a href="http://www.bsa.org/">Business Software Alliance</a>, Microsoft's anti-piracy arm, makes every time that they release statistics. Every year, the alliance reports the amount that the software industry lost due to piracy the previous year. How do they arrive at a figure? They make estimates on the number of copies pirated or downloaded, then multiply those numbers by their respective retail prices. This report also assumes that everyone who downloads a copy would have paid retail price for it had it not been available in pirated form. It also makes---at best---educated guesses on the number of copies pirated. Though many of the arguments brought by software and other media companies vis-a-vis stealing are fallacious, one fact remains crystal clear: copyright infringement is a crime in most countries in the world. If someone has not legally acquired a license to use the copyrighted material, they are commiting a crime. <iq>It's not stealing, because theft deprives the owner of property, but it is still illegal.</iq> The idea of copyright---that a creator's right to profit from their creation is protected---makes sense. That there should be copyright laws, requiring others to obtain a license<fn> to use/copy/access the creation, is not doubted by reasonable participants. The more interesting questions in this discussion are how far should the government go in defending copyright (and has it gone too far?) and how far and wide should a copyright extend (do heirs also get exclusive rights?). Even more interesting is that corporate entities are considered citizens of the US and, through their wealth, can defend their rights far more aggressively than any one citizen. It is their constant pressure that has shaped copyright law today (and not just in the US) and that presents the thorniest problems for the future. <ft>The HCC is the "Homebrew Computer Club", a computing club from over 30 years ago which was using Gates' Altair Basic program.</ft> <ft>This is apparently a user id taken as the user name for anonymity.</ft> <ft>Which can also be a license guaranteeing free use for all, without cost. The point is that the owner decides what the license is and all others must agree to it in order to use the creation.</ft>