So night clubs should pay royalties to Madonna for playing her latest hit? As ridiculous as it sounds, it's happening...
I believe we are discussing different dimensions of the same thing. In order to regulate "internet piracy" we must aknowledge the fact that the internet is a different platform, with different set of rules than the "real world". Internet is about sharing and communicating, so why go against the very nature of the net? The only solution would be to unplug it, but that's impossible. Last year I read a dialogue between two scholars, "the future of the book, and the book of the future". It was originally written in Spanish, will try to find a copy in English but I guess it wouldn't matter anyways because sharing it here would be against the law (???). If you understand Spanish, then please read it.
So a few things before I illustrate my point...
- Soporte: I'm trying to find the exact translation for this word. I don't know how to define it but I can give examples: clay tables, papyrus, wax tables, parchment, paper, "electronic" (here is the thing).
- Materialism
- Languages, Books, and Reading from the Printed Word to the Digital Text
- History of books
Basically, Roger Chartier questions the fact that we struggle to fit the idea of a book within the Internet, when in reality the concept of a book was originally created outside the internet. In other words, should a "book" take the form of a book on the Internet? Why should materiality matter in that which is immaterial? To illustrate my point, think of any newspaper, like the NYT or MH, does the online version look and work like a regular newspaper? Indeed, it evolved. Therefore, "translating" the real world into the virtual world doesn't make sense. In the real world, things are limited by their material form. So, why should an "e-book" have the form of a book? Is that necessary?
Consequentially, a whole industry is being threatened here. From paper production to book distribution... Again, the material form of a "book". On the internet, that's not necessary anymore, information flows freely in any way the user wants. I'm not against profiting, I just think major industries need to adapt or die. The world has changed, why keep the same laws and logic?
It's not that silly. One of my school's libraries has a machine that will print you a paper copy of any book you give it.
I honestly can't believe people are trying to compare a library to piracy >_< It looks like people can't even see the key difference between the two and why it matters :|
Well, libraries own things, whether they bought them or had them donated to them. They can only loan loan the things, not give them away (unless the person decides to be funny and steals them), and they only have a certain amount of that "thing" to loan. With piracy, especially online, not only are there way more copies available (potentially infinite) but the person doing the spreading may not have even bought a copy of whatever it is they're handing to people in the first place.
The library is like a friend that lets me borrows things for a short while and expects me to return it after. If I want to enjoy it for as long as I want I'll need to get my own.
Piracy's more like a library that lets me have it for free because it's coming out of someone else's pocket. Certainly not its own.
It's not that I don't own pirated things or anything. I'm just always aware of it in the back of my head.
Well, libraries own things, whether they bought them or had them donated to them. They can only loan loan the things, not give them away (unless the person decides to be funny and steals them), and they only have a certain amount of that "thing" to loan. With piracy, especially online, not only are there way more copies available (potentially infinite) but the person doing the spreading may not have even bought a copy of whatever it is they're handing to people in the first place.
The library is like a friend that lets me borrows things for a short while and expects me to return it after. If I want to enjoy it for as long as I want I'll need to get my own.
Piracy's more like a library that lets me have it for free because it's coming out of someone else's pocket. Certainly not its own.
It's not that I don't own pirated things or anything. I'm just always aware of it in the back of my head.
There is no guarantee that the book a library bought wasn't a stolen good in the first place.
...
Seriously? LMAO
While there is no guarantee that the book was bought, it is a lot less likely, seeing as how whenever the local library has asked for donations, there has always been plenty. A stolen book at the library is more of an exception, not a rule, whereas with piracy, a stolen whatever is a rule, not an exception.
Yoorah had the crux of it in his first post and it basically all comes down to rights and agreements. When you purchase something you're basically entering into an agreement with right holders to pass certain rights onto you, conferring ownership, rights of use/access and such. Within our current system when you borrow something from the library you're in an agreement with the library to gain temporary rights of use/access, similar but with restrictions as well as the whole temporary lease thing. Same goes for say, watching a DVD with your friends. Your friends can't watch that DVD whenever they want, they don't have that sort of right. They can borrow it but on your terms, another sort of agreement is made between you and your friend, again there are restrictions. One can avoid these sorts of restrictions by getting your own copy whether you buy it or have the rights given to you (gifts, hurray).
Piracy circumvents all of this ignoring all concepts of agreements and transferral of rights and self-entitling you right of use/access (sometimes not full but anti-piracy measures are another matter) as one who went through the normal/legal procedures. You can use it on your own terms without any of the obligations/restrictions associated with borrowing. You can't argue that people who pirate can/will delete their pirated goods after a while in relation to the statement that libraries and piracy are the same because you're still circumventing the system of rights and agreements and still avoid the obligations/restrictions associated with borrowing. The very fact that you have the choice of deleting it is a right obtained by piracy.
One might as well argue that youtube videos (as they are, none of this working around the system shenanagins) are piracy. However there are official uploads of copyrighted material which are authorised by the copyright holders and these often have links to itunes or information regarding on how to get copies of whatever you're watching/listening to. There are restrictions in place regarding the access and use of these materials and to avoid these restrictions you can get your own copy (as mentioned before).