Filesharing: the debate part 2 (the end?)

Jeff: I would normally enjoy a debate on this or any other topic. And I do appreciate your determination to be civil and respectful: kudos. BUT...it is a waste of my time and frankly angina-producing to attempt to discuss anything with someone who, like Humpty-Dumpty in "Through the Looking Glass," refuses to stick to what words and legal concepts mean. That makes debate impossible. That makes logic impossible. In your first three responses, you scored a zero in honestly agreeing on terms and accuracy of definition.
1) Although it doesn't matter to the larger issue, your use of "ethicist" is so broad as to be meaningless, though it is consistent with your other uses of words and concepts.

I think we're still at a level of miscommunication on this one. My use of 'ethicist' is pulled right from the dictionary. I'm sorry that the term in its common(rather than professional) usage is so broad, like 'artist' or 'philosopher,' but I certainly meant no disrespect to your profession, which I think I tried to make clear. My only point, which I'm sure you must accept, is that I wasn't deliberately misrepresenting myself. I pointed you directly to my blog, which contains a precise, accurate profile, and for those who would dig deeper I have mentioned my actual profession on a couple of occasions. I was merely referring to a description of my interests, since in fact I spend a considerable amount of time thinking about and discussing issues of ethics.

I think anyone who examines my posts through our entire discussion will find I have stuck to my same usages/definitions of terms throughout. If your impression was otherwise please understand that this is not the case. I have remained very consistent in my own position throughout. What you have observed is merely my feeble attempts to explain that singular position in a manner which will not be misunderstood.

2) The Canadian Courts have NOT declared file-sharing "legal." That is not what the opinion about file-sharing software said. The opinion inviolved whether software used by others for file-sharing was implicated when it was so used. It's a bad opinion as it is, but it still doesn't "clarify" the legality of file-sharing. And copying an entire book by photocopy is as illegal in Canada as it is in the U.S.

I think I've failed to clarify myself properly here. According to most people who know significantly more about the law than I do, the decision does in fact deem file-sharing legal. To clarify: this does not mean that certain actions taken with the shared files do not then constitute copyright infringement. The ruling is as to the actual act of sharing files which might contain copyrighted information on your computer with other people over the internet.

Using your photocopy analogy, downloading a copyrighted book and then printing it out on your computer(maybe even to sell to someone else), which corresponds to the photocopying of a book, would in fact be illegal. It would not be illegal, however, to merely fileshare(downloading and uploading encompassed) the book. This is much more akin to putting the book in the photocopier and pressing the button that converts the book to digital information, but not actually putting paper through the machine.

Once copyrighted material is on your computer, there are in fact many things you can do with it which do not constitute infringement since at that point it is not yet considered distributed. You could, for example take songs which you have downloaded and burn them to a cd, which is legal in Canada because when you buy cds you pay a copy levy which is intended to cover any losses artists may allegedly incur because of this practice.

Another thing you could do with the material prior to distributing it in some form would be to use it in a manner appropriate under "fair use" legislation as a part of a new work of art or to quote it for purposes of review.

This is what I mean when I say that in Canada filesharing is legal. The people I've talked to seem fairly clear on the above points. It's possible of course that they're wrong, but it seems to me your objection to my pronouncement may have been based on a slightly different interpretation, i.e. something similar to the idea that in Canada we can just do whatever we want with copyrighted material. Am I right?

3) No lawyer, no ethicist, no educated person that I have asked about your very strange definition of theft agrees with it. That is because it is nonsense. There are so many kinds of theft that do not involve a physical removal that thinking them up would be a good parlor game. You are not a lawyer, my friend, give it up; I am, but you shouldn't have to be a lawyer to figure out that taking music that belongs to one owner and duplicating it for one's own use without permission, license or fee is stealing. Similarly, while the person sneaking into the theater would be committing trespass whether he watched the show of not, when he watched the show with out paying for it, THAT IS STEALING TOO!

Again, we're getting caught up on terminology, which is what I tried to head off in my response by clarifying what I meant. I could care less about how different people define the word 'theft' or 'stealing' or whatever. I'm talking about the concept that we all agree is wrong. Call it klajsghlk if you want, but when someone has property and another person takes it away so they no longer have it, we all agree that action is wrong. The reason I have included this point is that the entertainment industry is working hard to equate klajsghlk with filesharing, which is totally inaccurate and misleading. The action of duplicating something someone else has or has designed is very different both in implementation and in how society as a whole is inclined to view it, as I tried to point out in the way our copyright and patent laws are defined, which treat abstract ideas differently than physical property already, with 'rights' on exclusivity that run for a very brief period of time and then expire, which is not how we view property at all. With regards to society, I think it's safe to say that many people see this form of legislation as an expression of economic incentive rather than the protection of an inalienable right to micromanage particular abstract concepts because one holds a particular piece of paper.

To clarify the point, it's often easier to step away from the new and sometimes confusing digital world and look at a simple example:


A small village on the shores of a lake subsists entirely on fishing. Unfortunately, they are not a very advanced society and fish by wading out into the water and grabbing fish by their hands. Thus, despite the bountiful fish everywhere, they have to spend every waking moment fishing to break even.

One day, a slightly-more-clever-than-the-rest fellow is walking along the shore procrastinating from his fishing when he comes across a fish skeleton lying in the sand. There is only one kind of fish in his area, and their skeletons are an incredibly common sight. This time, however, he notices something: one of the bones on this skeleton is curved with a slight barb on the end. He thinks to himself: "if I were to convince a fish by means of some sort of bait to clamp down on this interesting shape with its mouth, it would get caught!" and right then and there he invents the fishhook.

The man calls a huge meeting of the surrounding area, telling everyone he has important news. He explains to all the people his incredible new invention. The best part, he tells everyone, is that the necessary materials for the fishing apparatus can be found literally lying on the ground all over the place. However, the man also makes a demand of all these people: every time they, or their children, or their friends, or anyone they tell, makes a fishhook using the method he has invented, they must give him 50 fish since it was his idea.


Now, this example seems ridiculous: obviously the man has no inherent right to demand payment for the use of his idea when these fish skeletons are in ready supply all over the ground.

However, it may have been that some time previous to this the town elders got together to address the problem of how inefficient their fishing was, and in order to encourage new ideas, they promised that if someone came up with a new and different way of catching fish, everyone in their village would pay that person 5 fish every time they used the idea. Now, it's a different story. The town made a promise, which they now have to keep. One can clearly see that rather than upholding the man's right to manage an abstract idea he has come up with as if it were his own property, the town was merely offering an incentive to encourage much-needed innovation.

What if, however, another town had met at the same time and considered this option but decided it was unnecessary. In their opinion, there were so many people working at fishing with all the same resources available to them that new ideas would come up as a matter of course, and no pricey incentive was necessary to encourage them. So, in that town, they refused to honour the man's request, although many of those people presented gifts to the inventor in thanks for his work. Did this town do the man an injustice? Clearly not! The man had no inherent rights to be upheld. It was only an issue of what had been agreed to. The second town did nothing unethical.

Furthermore, what if that second town had hundreds of millions of smart, innovative people in it who were able to exchange ideas easily and who had incredible resources to work with? Would it be wise for that town to offer a pricey economic incentive for things that many people were willing to do anyway? Of course not. This is why I think our societies should adjust our own usage of such incentives as well.

It goes on and on...you say that ideas aren't property. Well, what can I say...the entire world disagrees with you, because they are right and you are wrong because the world, not you, decides what it regards as "stealing.". You seem to believe that because stealing a patent has its own term, that means it isn't stealing. Wrong again.

In fact, the laws on ideas, their buying, selling, rental, etc., in every country in the world differ from the laws on physical property. We already treat them as fundamentally different! Furthermore, the out-dated fashion in which many of these laws are expressed makes them ill-adapted to our changing world, which is why I advocate reforming these laws to express the exchange of ideas in the language of services, which more accurately and capably reflects the ways in which they are now being and will continue to be used.

I have to ask you, how well will our current laws function when computers can produce music, videos, and software from scratch? This is not very far away from reality, and our legal systems as they currently stand are not ready to deal with these new developments. Already digital technologies are making it fundamentally easier for people all over the world to produce high-quality films, music, and software. Present laws already fail to reflect the incredible amount of power in a computer which is the real cause of effective filesharing: namely that for all practical purposes with regards to software our computers are just like people who can learn skills very quickly from anyone else who knows them; with regards to music our computers are like very skilled musicians who can perform a song in exact detail after hearing it only once; and with regard to movies our computers are like skilled storytellers who can give us a whole story in all its visual detail after hearing it only once. I have posted on this topic before.

Unfortunately all of this sidetracking has meant that I actually haven't heard any feedback from you on my core idea, namely that our laws would be more consistent, adaptable, and efficient if they treated the transfer of abstract concepts as a service rather than the transfer of a product. This is the essential part of my entire outlook on the future of filesharing's legal status, and the part I am most interested in having public debate about since it is the part of the debate which can most quickly be used to improve our societies.

As for the rest, you have an infuriating technique of mounting arguments that have nothing to do with what you're arguing against, such as your arguments that breaking a law is not unethical. This isn't rocket science...it is wrong to wilfully break laws unless there is an over-riding good that comes of it...and "wanting free music" doesn't count.

What can I say? I apologise that you're infuriated by my posts, although I have to say you have a tendency to view me through a coloured lense of where you think I'm coming from. Philosophically it is entirely necessary when proposing a change in law to explain the inherent rights at stake(a clarification I think I've been careful to use) as opposed to merely the current status of the law. I haven't claimed anywhere that it is ethical to break the law. I've merely pointed out that not all things enshrined in law reflect inherent rights that we all agree upon. If I may quote from my original essay, what I want "to look at is why something is illegal in the first place."

As far as the over-riding good involved, you don't know much about me if you still think that the reason I want to promote file-sharing is "wanting free music." People who know me understand that I view technology as a tool for improving the function of our world rather than simply as a toy for my own enjoyment. I want to promote filesharing as an effective way to spread new ideas, especially throughout the developing world where people don't have the luxury of paying what to them are enormous fortunes for the privilege of using their own computers effectively. In this respect, I'm thinking not so much about music as about theoretical literature(think economics, philosophy, social structure, etc.), computer software(the possibilities are almost endless), and access to virtual markets.

Frankly, and with all respect, I cannot tell whether you are just ill-informed, have a logical deficit, are intellectually dishonest, or just slippery as hell, and at this point, I don't care. Arguing under such conditions is a waste of my time, and maybe even yours. But you may have a career in politics.

Again, thanks for being civil, keep blogging, don't give up your interest in ethics...but this argument is a loser, and maintaining that it isn't approaches delusion. I can't argue with delusions, and I'm not qualified to treat them.

I know you can't, and until you can tell that I'm none of those things I fear you will be unable to understand the perspective I'm putting forward. If there's any way that you can step past the image you have of a non-serious, illogical, spoiled, selfish little kid, I would really appreciate it. I'm very serious in my rigour; I try my absolute best, and typically with good effect, to be as logical as possible, almost to a fault; and I'm brutally honest with myself intellectually, very willing to change my position immediately as new information and perspectives are made available to me. If there's any way you can understand that, I would really encourage you to reread my writings from this perspective. I think you'll find I'm anything but the person you have made me out to be. I'm sure you're very aware that in an online environment where verbal and nonverbal cues are lacking, it can be very difficult to grasp something as tricky as character, but if you can find it in yourself to put out the extremely large effort to do so, I really think we could accomplish a lot in our discussion.

I know you said you won't be replying any further here, but from what little I already know of you I think there's a part of you which desperately wants to continue. It's the part that says you've never seen another filesharer like this one before, and you're unlikely to have a chance to discuss filesharing with one on these terms again. If you can slow down, take a deep breath, and quietly review my writing without allowing a sense of frustration to rear up when you see things that on the surface resemble all those other things that have so frustrated you in the past, I just know this exchange can change from something frustrating into something incredibly useful.

sincerely,
Jeffery Coleman