When did IP become so worthless to people?

[o.pwuaioc]

Fashions don't get ripped off. Trends get copied. Totally different. Fashion companies jealously guard their trademarks and designs from counterfeiters because their name, their style, their intellectual property - these are the things that make a fashion label stand out to the consumer. This is why you have that stereotype of fashion conscious women who can pick out particular brands from across a room.

And intellectual properties are sure as shit a cornerstone of capitalism. If you disagree, I would ask you to please point out to me any time in our modern capitalist history that people did not fight over their intellectual property or make an effort so assert their ownership? Hell, I can think of examples of intellectual property being protected by governments as far back as the Victorian era. Even further if you want to treat religious institutions as forms of government.

I mean, why do you think we call it Pasteurizing milk instead of the 'boil it, drink it' method? You think it's any mistake that Great Expectations is universally recognized as a Dickens novel? Or that band-aids are made by a company called 'band aid'? We wear Levi's - that's not just a clever name for dyed canvas that some dude came up with.

The apple logo - instantly identifiable, even if you hate Macs. Where else do you see that logo? The SEGA chime from your childhood. Definitely didn't make it to any SNES titles. The fact that people refer to the King James Bible as specifically 'The King James' Bible and not just 'The British version'?

The colony of Virginia, chartered to the Virginia trading company. The East Indie Tea Company - the absolute definition of Capitalism - you think they didn't make sure people knew which tea blends were theirs and which weren't?

It's all intellectual property - people come up with ideas that catch on and there are laws in place to protect their ownership over those ideas. Hell, why do you think the United States was known as the land of opportunity? Because it was started by capitalists who wanted individuals to be able to own their work and profit from it instead of watching a corrupt government take it from them.

But hey, try putting yourself into the shoes of someone who has created something with some kind of economic viability. It's easy to clamor for a world with no IP protection when you haven't made anything yourself.

We really need to differentiate between different types of intellectual property. I think the vitriol will only increase if we just lump it all together rather than argue about specifics...

[o.pwuaioc]

Why does the action of copying it make it wrong?

Because copyright law stipulates that you purchase an item but not the rights to produce and market that item.

As for copying it, that's fine. It's when you try to give those copies away that you are violating someone else's rights.

Did you even read what Mendoza said? He said copying an item and then selling the original is wrong.

Moreover, something being illegal doesn't automatically make it wrong, otherwise quite a few things that people universally praise today would be "wrong". I'm not sure you want to go down that route.

[AmishSamurai]

What I usually do is if I download an anime, I'll delete it after watching and never download again- if it was worth watching again, I'll buy it this time. Exception being if it was never licensed in the US and will never be, or hasn't been in circulation for years.

That said, I do get annoyed at anime fans with a huge sense of entitlement about pirating. At the last con I went to, I actually had people give me weird looks for wanting to *gasp* buy anime instead of pirating.

[jfrost]

But hey, try putting yourself into the shoes of someone who has created something with some kind of economic viability. It's easy to clamor for a world with no IP protection when you haven't made anything yourself.

If this kind of drivel has already started, the thread has become pointless.

[Flake]

Moreover, something being illegal doesn't automatically make it wrong, otherwise quite a few things that people universally praise today would be "wrong". I'm not sure you want to go down that route.

Like I said before, you can make this about morals and then we can watch this conversation go every which way. I'm talking economics. Laws and regulations are part of economics. So yes, in the scope of a conversation that does not include anything so subjective as morals, something being illegal does in fact make it wrong.

As for 'not grouping definitions of IP' together...well, that makes it even harder to have a discussion, doesn't it? Arbitrary definitions are so deliberate, aren't they? I am using the strict definition of the acronym 'Intellectual Property' to include anything distinctive that a person can create and that laws or customs exist to prevent the copying / theft of.

If this kind of drivel has already started, the thread has become pointless.

I think I made a pretty valid suggestion. Every situation has at least two sides. I was simply asking you put yourself in the position of someone who might be expecting income from their work but is instead unable to derive any profit, no matter how popular or well accepted their product might be. You don't think that would be frustrating?

[o.pwuaioc]

I'm talking...

Yeah, but that's not what Mendoza said. It seems really unfair on your part to criticize me for discussing morals when it was actually my response to Mendoza who said he thought it was wrong.

As for 'not grouping definitions of IP' together...well, that makes it even harder to have a discussion, doesn't it? Arbitrary definitions are so deliberate, aren't they? I am using the strict definition of the acronym 'Intellectual Property' to include anything distinctive that a person can create and that laws or customs exist to prevent the copying / theft of.

Great, and when we talk about cooking food, I'll make sure to never discuss what type of food we're cooking. Just so long as it's an edible item. There are huge differences between copyright, patent, trademark, trade secrets, etc... that it's not wholly inappropriate not to separate them and see if the merits of protecting each stands up on its own accord. And then you must define what each covers. FederalExpresso was deemed to infringe on FedEx's trademark, but clearly it's not exactly the same. That's just one tiny problem out of a sea of problems that you're wading in and yelling about but not really swimming anywhere.

[Flake]

*snip*

I'm not criticizing anyone. Please do not take my disagreeing with you as criticism.

Here's the thing - I'm not yelling about any problems. I like the system we have. A lot of great stuff gets made because artists, writers, musicians, and programmers have (had) a reasonable expectation of making money off their work if it appealed to enough people.

That system is breaking down because technology (and the society around it) is evolving WAY faster than the law. You can break copyright law down however you want (and please do because I don't recognize the distinctions you are implying) but we can all agree that it is down right antiquated in this day and age.

Ultimately, I don't give a damn what you download, why you download it, or if you're running a vast counterfeit media empire out of your basement. I won't blame the consumer for the entire situation because the entertainment industries should have seen this coming twenty years ago.

I am just saying that A) Call a spade a spade - if it isn't yours and you give it away, you are breaking existing copy right law and B) Ultimately there is a price to pay for this behavior and it will be in the form of reduced incentive for studios to make decent shit and more and more draconian DRM that only hurts legit users.

[o.pwuaioc]

I'm not talking about disagreeing. So far we haven't even disagreed on anything, because I haven't put forth anything. I was talking about you interjecting "economics" into a response to Mendoza's morality.

The original statement was:

I don't think its really right to copy it and then sell the original either, but i dont have a problem backing up your media for your own use, particulalry for rare retro games that can be messed up.

He's saying it's wrong to make a copy for personal use and then sell the original. I said that I could not fathom how that could be wrong. You then responded to me about selling copies, but neither Mendoza nor I mentioned that at all.

[Erik_Twice]

Man this is simple.

1) Ideas require work. Specially very developed ideas like music, books or games.

2) If you think I should pay you those 10 hours you worked at the mine, then you should accept that you have to pay me for my music if you want to enjoy it.


Owning your own work is the most basic right a worker can have, no matter if you are a medic or an engineer, work is work. YOUR work.


Inazuma talks about a "fair price". Who are you to ask me for fairness? It's MY work, I decide how much it's worth and what I want to do with it. What is fair but letting me own my own work?

If I spent my team writting Naruto and I wanted to charge 1.000.000$ , it's my choice because it would be my work! You are not entitled to it for less than what I want to ask because you have no choice on the matter, you don't decide how much my work is worth anymore than I don't force you to work at minimun wage.

Not that pirates pay artists the minimun wage.


But pricing doesn't even enter into account. I have a blog, it's free to read, I don't charge anything. But it's mine, and I own every single word included there. But many (not talking about anyone in particular) would argue that I don't have any right to shoot down that fucking bot who copied one of my articles.

[Limewater]

But hey, try putting yourself into the shoes of someone who has created something with some kind of economic viability. It's easy to clamor for a world with no IP protection when you haven't made anything yourself.

You seem to be arguing for labor theory of value. That's not particularly capitalistic.

Regarding intellectual property, I think it's worth mentioning that William Shakespeare did not enjoy any legal IP protection. You've given a ton of great examples of IP law applied in the status quo. However, many would argue that the status quo is far from pure capitalism. I would agree.

For what it's worth, I do agree that piracy is morally wrong in pretty much all cases, though everyone on the thread wants to pretend that they are arguing independently of morality.