(07-23-2009, 10:50 AM)Richard Wrote: If someone is going to pirate music, they will find someway to justify their actions to themselves and their friends. Whether it’s a judgment of the system or the lives and business decisions of the artists. Somehow it will be…okay to do this because…it’s the system that wrong, not the act.
This presupposes that the system is perfectly just and the action definitely wrong. Those presuppositions are what we are questioning here.
Are you saying that we should just blindly trust that all existing laws are just, and never question them? Is all questioning/re-evaluation/assessment automatically considered justification, or do you think there is room to question?
(07-23-2009, 10:50 AM)Richard Wrote: Sadly, this kind of thinking is the root of so much that is wrong with the world these days. Where one injustice validates another injustice which validates another interpretation of the previous injustices…?? Where does it stop? Or perhaps the question should be…where does it begin? It begins with the individual making the ethical choice.
That's what we're trying to do here. We're trying to figure out what the ethical choice is in this case.
(07-23-2009, 06:31 AM)Ali Quadir Wrote: On the other hand. If I told you that the book wasn't much good, and you decided against buying it. Did I rob JKR of her income?
That's a very good question and further strengthens my point that it's just not so simple. See how this can get really crazy? We all affect one another.
(07-23-2009, 06:31 AM)Ali Quadir Wrote: The fact that my behavior has an effect on the lady's bottom line might not be relevant. It certainly is not the case in law. It's only relevant in assessing damages.
While several people have quoted the law, my interest in this discussion is with ethics in alignment with the Law of One, which may or may not be in alignment with existing laws. Laws change with society's whims. We already know what the laws state on these issues. I am more interested in exploring the ethics that go beyond man-made laws...and how our choices affect our polarity.
(07-23-2009, 06:31 AM)Ali Quadir Wrote: JKR would like you to believe that any dollar not landing in her purse is a stolen dollar. So would her publishers and they will go as far as they can because ultimately that puts more money in their pockets.
Well, respectfully, we really don't know what JKR thinks. I was only using her books as a convenient example.
(07-23-2009, 12:02 PM)Ali Quadir Wrote: In my opinion if a system is wrong it is wrong for me to support it. If I support a system that terrorizes people by treating it as just... *I* am terrorizing people.
Exactly! I think the laws regarding copyrights have accomplished much, but have not kept up with technology. I don't know what the solution is, but I just don't think it's as simple as it used to be.
My understanding is that the primary purpose of the original copyright laws was to prohibit someone stealing another's intellectual property and making a profit on someone else's work. They don't prohibit freely sharing that property, as is evidenced by society's acceptance of loaning books on a small scale to friends, or on a large scale via libraries. Hence, I contend that the only difference between the loaning of books and the sharing of digital music is scope. Provided the person offering the music is not getting a profit, but is just sharing it freely, I see that more in the same category of loaning books, but just on a grander scale.
I'm NOT saying it's ok. I'm saying it is a new phenomenon that the copyright laws did not take into consideration. I'm saying the whole system needs to be re-evaluated as to exactly what it is they're trying to accomplish. In meantime, suing teenagers or little old ladies for downloading a cd is disproportionate.