Talking points: Return the Stolen
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12:59 PM |
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YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR. I mean, I assume. For all I know you might be a car thief of some sort. I wouldn't have any way of knowing, and frankly if the car does not belong to me and mine, I can't muster up any significant rage.
But we all remember that campaign, right? Where stealing a handbag is exactly like having a movie's copy without paying for it? We had a good laugh while we waited for these unskippable ads to get the hell out of our way and let us see our legal copy of District 9. After all, even if you don't know that the Supreme Court doesn't consider copyright infringment "theft" the differences between helping yourself to someone's only car and you having a movie which operates outside of the allowances of the owner is sufficiently large to give it some thought.
But what about the opposite? When early in the Year Boingboing reported on yet another sad Public Domain day, many objected to the title's assertion that these works had been "stolen" by the copyright extention. After all, these works weren't YOURS or MINE to begin with. What has been stolen.
Now, obviously I don't know the true intent of the author. But hear me out.
You might yet have some older living relatives. If that is the case, you might be in for an inheritance. Effective following the death of said relative, you might be legally entitled to receive a benefit from that person.
Now, let's say that the inheritance is a sizable amount of money, held in a bank. This bank is earning interest from this money, and it is on it's best interest to keep the money where it is. So, after the reading of the will is done, you expect the money to exchange hands. But the bank begins using trickery to delay you from getting your money. and they manage to keep the inheritance from actually ocurring for 40 years.
But it's not really YOUR money. It's just a money you where going to have, and well, the bank liked it, and had the means to keep it. Who are you to say the bank STOLE your inheritance? They might have robbed you of having what you legally(if not morally) deserve, but is that really stealing something from you?
Yes. Yes it it. It is immoral and unethical to undermine a legal transfer of goods. The entertainment industry might have "legally" convinced congress that copyrights on works then older than a generation needed to remain under copyright more time, but that doesn't make it not stealing. They stole our inheritance, one that was going to benefit everyone.
There are many rationalizations out there for the 76 extension and the Sonny Bono Act. And if you want to believe them, go ahead and say that it's just a happy coincidence that the major beneficiaries from these laws are the people who spent millions of dollars trying to get them passed. But all I see is a constitution disregarded, and a world where the prosumer remains bound by laws designed by consumer.
But maybe you disagree? If it's not stealing, what is it?
But we all remember that campaign, right? Where stealing a handbag is exactly like having a movie's copy without paying for it? We had a good laugh while we waited for these unskippable ads to get the hell out of our way and let us see our legal copy of District 9. After all, even if you don't know that the Supreme Court doesn't consider copyright infringment "theft" the differences between helping yourself to someone's only car and you having a movie which operates outside of the allowances of the owner is sufficiently large to give it some thought.
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But what about the opposite? When early in the Year Boingboing reported on yet another sad Public Domain day, many objected to the title's assertion that these works had been "stolen" by the copyright extention. After all, these works weren't YOURS or MINE to begin with. What has been stolen.
Now, obviously I don't know the true intent of the author. But hear me out.
You might yet have some older living relatives. If that is the case, you might be in for an inheritance. Effective following the death of said relative, you might be legally entitled to receive a benefit from that person.
Now, let's say that the inheritance is a sizable amount of money, held in a bank. This bank is earning interest from this money, and it is on it's best interest to keep the money where it is. So, after the reading of the will is done, you expect the money to exchange hands. But the bank begins using trickery to delay you from getting your money. and they manage to keep the inheritance from actually ocurring for 40 years.
But it's not really YOUR money. It's just a money you where going to have, and well, the bank liked it, and had the means to keep it. Who are you to say the bank STOLE your inheritance? They might have robbed you of having what you legally(if not morally) deserve, but is that really stealing something from you?
Yes. Yes it it. It is immoral and unethical to undermine a legal transfer of goods. The entertainment industry might have "legally" convinced congress that copyrights on works then older than a generation needed to remain under copyright more time, but that doesn't make it not stealing. They stole our inheritance, one that was going to benefit everyone.
There are many rationalizations out there for the 76 extension and the Sonny Bono Act. And if you want to believe them, go ahead and say that it's just a happy coincidence that the major beneficiaries from these laws are the people who spent millions of dollars trying to get them passed. But all I see is a constitution disregarded, and a world where the prosumer remains bound by laws designed by consumer.
But maybe you disagree? If it's not stealing, what is it?
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