I am going to reply in this thread off-list. If you want to be  
included, please email me off-list: curi / curi.us and I will CC you.

Elliot

On May 19, 2006, at 10:00 AM, Dave Howell wrote:

>
> On May 15, 2006, at 16:03, Elliot Temple wrote:
>
>> But is every case of piracy deserving of the same great scorn? I  
>> realise this may be a tangential issue, but if someone can't  
>> afford a book and is not going to buy it either way, whom has he  
>> harmed by downloading it?
>
> Whether he has "harmed" anybody or not is quite irrelevant, and a  
> false argument (except for purposes of how much extra money you owe  
> the creator if you violate his/her copyright). US Copyright law, in  
> both principle and practice, with a few specific and notable  
> exceptions, says that what a person creates belongs to them. If I  
> create some fabulous work of art or brilliant programming book, it  
> is my right as the person who did the making to
>    give it away for free
>    give away the right to copy it for free
>    sell or lease the right to publish it to a third party
>    publish it myself and charge people some nominal fee
>    publish it myself and charge an outrageous fee
>    not share it with anybody but people named "Fred."
>
> If you don't happen to like what I'm doing with my creation, that's  
> just too bad. Make your own. The fact that you can steal it without  
> "harming" anybody because you wouldn't have paid for it anyway (or  
> I wasn't going to sell it to you in the first place) is a bogus  
> argument, because it's not your right to decide who will or won't  
> be harmed by stealing my work. It's my work, it's my time/energy/ 
> money in the making, it's my right.
>
> Music, BTW, is one of the specific and notable exceptions;  
> specifically the performance of somebody else's composition.  
> There's also a time limit on ownership, which is currently very  
> long (I believe it's creator's lifetime + 70 years, but I'd have to  
> check; they keep changing it). Finally, there's "fair use," which  
> I'd guess about 94% of the people who claim this don't understand,  
> and which is widely abused.
>
>
>

-- Elliot Temple
http://www.curi.us/blog/