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Originally Posted by Professor S
Actually it's not subjective at all. There are two types of property, real and intellectual. Real is protected by patent law, and intelectual is protected by copyright law. It's been this way for a very long time. If you take someone else's intellectual property without payment or permission it is legal and moral theft. There is no grey area.
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I would say the grey area is my local library, where I can - for example - take Alan Moore's Watchmen off the shelf (without paying, and I assume without his permission) and read it. I can also rent new release movies on DVD, new release music, old music, old movies, magazines, newspapers, and books (of course). All for free. The library pays for the media once and thousands of people have free access. The catch is the time limit on the media; in this case, 3 weeks for books and 1 week for everything else. What would you say about people who download a Watchmen torrent and delete it after 3 weeks?
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Originally Posted by Professor S
No, I can fault people because they are taking what is not theirs. They are thieves and stealing is immoral and illegal. How can you NOT fault people for performing moral and legal wrongs? Any explanation for this behavior is simply an excuse to make one feel better about being a theif, not a rational argument.
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I suppose I am rationalizing a bit, aren't I? I griped to BaB about this though. DC and Marvel are behind in that they need to get with the times and come up with a way to distribute comics digitally. For a limited period of time Marvel had a deal with some company and they released digital copies of popular comics like X-Men and Spiderman. They released the copies on DVD with all the issues up to a certain point. And the price was a heck of a deal. Releasing comics digitally will increase sales and allow them to lower prices. And like Teuthida said, with the Kindle becoming popular you have a huge potential market to read comics. Also, comic book stores are somewhat intimidating whereas buying content online is not.
I also do believe in public domain. For instance, I think it's sort of insane that I need to pay money for sheet music for composers like Mozart. That guy has been dead for over 200 years, his music should be free minus the paper and ink. I would certainly pay for a performance of his music though. Likewise, once all the Beatles are dead and all the people who recorded their music are dead; their music should become public domain. Who gets the money for their recordings? Corporations? Family members mooching off of a legacy while contributing nothing useful to society?
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Originally Posted by Professor S
You think they can't or won't do it? There are already draconian ideas floating around world government. In the end, we will all end up getting punished for the immoral and illegal behavior of those who steal intellectual property.
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I don't think they can do it. At least not in our lifetime. I think they might try. I don't really know. I do know it is major corporations like the RIAA and MPAA who are trying to control it "draconian style" as you might say. For example, in my lifetime I have never heard a sane person say, "Close down the libraries! They distribute content for free!" I think most people acknowledge that libraries are non-profit organizations with the intent on intellectual distribution. Libraries don't inhibit the sales of books. Or even if they do, after hundreds of years of living with libraries we still have authors writing books. What's up with that?