I like that you stick to your argument blind to all facts, counterpoints, or reason. In all honesty you should probably decide on either arguing for copyright from a moral perspective or a legal perspective, because your attempts to do one or the other as it suits you come across as slimy.

3. I’m not advocating that anyone break the law because of past injustices or that copyrighted works should be free. I’m just saying that it’s insulting when organizations like the RIAA take the moral high ground about how copyright infringement is just like stealing, having previously engaged in real, honest-to-god anticompetitive, monopolistic practices.

2. I agree that Congress is has stretched the term and scope of copyright at the behest of Hollywood and other interest groups. No doubt about it. But they haven’t yet turned copyright law into what you say it is, which is something that exists only to benefit rights-holders. It’s a long way from life plus 70 to perpetual copyright.

1. I’m not sure what you’re arguing here, but my point was that copyright is a bundle of rights, all of which grant the creator (or assignee) a limited monopoly over certain aspects of the work. I.e., nobody else can sell, distribute, or profit from it.

Anyway, back to work. Thanks for the good discussion.

Do you know about the idea of rivalry in economics? In your poor arguments that intellectual property is not state granted monopoly you conflate a series of rivalrous goods, such as watermelons and an individual’s labor, with the non-rivalrous good of text.

IP enforcement is the state, either directly via criminal law or indirectly by providing courts for civil redress, adding excludability to a nonrivalous good.

Just because the state hasn’t given me a monopoly on books doesn’t mean they haven’t given me a monopoly on my writing. You may think it’s good of the state to give me a monopoly on my writing, but it’s a monopoly nonetheless. For example, J.K. Rowling has a monopoly on Harry Potter granted to her by several states in their jurisdiction.

Although Sonny has difficulty with the Constitution, where is clearly states that the only reason Congress is permitted to enact copyright and patent laws is the common good, the Supreme Court gets to decide what the law is and isn’t. Thus, copyright infringement is not theft.

3. I have little to no pity for the people who complain about having been made to pay “too much” for CDs in the past and use that as a justification for their stealing now. It’s like going to Morton’s, deciding that no cut of beef is worth paying $50 for — especially when it only cost $15 or so wholesale! — and walking out on the tab “on principle.” You don’t get to decide how much a business charges for their product. If you don’t like it, you go without. You don’t steal it. To use another, perhaps more apt example: You don’t say “At $10, a movie ticket costs too much. Therefore I am going to sneak into the movie theater and not pay for a ticket. It’s not stealing because I’m not depriving the studios of anything because I wouldn’t pay that much money for one of their overpriced extravaganzas.”

2. So you don’t deny that there’s been a shift in favor of the rights of copyright holders due to acts of Congress that have been upheld by the Courts, yet I’m still incorrect in saying that “copyright law” has “evolved.” Again, I find this complaint baffling. (And, for the record, I already admitted giving short shrift to the balance between the rights of copyright holders and the advancement of the arts. I just think it’s clear that the balance have moved much closer to the rights of artists than that of the advancement of the arts.)

(Again, for the record, I also think that people misunderstand the founders’ views on copyright. http://thomas.loc.gov/home/fedpapers/fed_43.html

As Madison points out, the right of authors to hold their copyright was a matter of common law. But I haven’t the time or the inclination to go into that fully right now. Just food for thought.)

1. I’ll again refer to Helprin on the matter of monopoly: “In the figurative sense of exclusive control, copyright is a monopoly, but to label it as such is meaningless, as it is no more a monopoly than the monopoly anyone exercises over his labor, or the monopoly anyone enjoys in regard to his property, or the monopoly someone might have over the sale of a watermelon he grew in his garden. In fact, my copyright is less a monopoly than my physicians’ monopoly on his labor because whereas my copyright expires, the practice he may leave to his heirs or assigns (he built a practice, I wrote books) does not. The concepts, ideas, methods and means within a copyright are free for anyone to appropriate, whereas no one is free to appropriate the labor of a laborer. My work can be excerpted at will according to the doctrine of fair use.”

Emphasis mine on that last part, because it’s the key: If Helprin actually had a monopoly he could quash any attempts to use his ideas, his thoughts, his words. Furthermore, a monopoly suggests some sort of barrier to entry or a blow to competition. But there is no barrier to entry in the book market from Helprin. All he’s arguing for is an inability for you to take his work and make it your own or take his work without rewarding his labors. As Helprin writes, this is no more a monopoly than that exercised by the French Fry Chef at Mickey Ds when he asks that he be paid for his work.

Found it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GH5LPqp9Irs

If you define “stealing” to be the moral equivalent of doing all those things, fine. But it’s certainly not the legal equivalent of those things, and I think that’s where the problem and the misinformation lies. Our courts don’t treat it the same thing, most people don’t look at it as the same thing, and our Constitution doesn’t view it as the same thing either. So whenever I see someone making the argument that it is the same thing, it gets my hackles up.

1. “Copyright is a “monopoly” or a “subsidy” granted by the state.” You say: “This argument is the easiest to knock down because it’s based on a total misunderstanding of what the words “monopoly,” “tax” and “subsidy” mean.” and then you quote Mark Helprin. Here, you have your own interpretation of what “monopoly” means, sourced from a conservative author who believes copyright should exist forever. But, as the Second Circuit put it: “The copyright law seeks to establish a delicate equilibrium. On the one hand, it affords protection to authors as an incentive to create, and, on the other, it must appropriately limit the extent of that protection so as to avoid the effects of monopolistic stagnation.” Computer Assocs. Int’l, 1992 U.S. App. LEXIS 14305 at *3 (2d Cir. 1992). Even if you disagree with critics (and courts) about what “monopoly” means, you can’t simply dismiss the fact that the historical purpose of copyright law is to create a balance between the rights of authors and the public interest. And you can’t argue that commenters are wrong or misguided in saying that copyright is a monopoly.

2. “You’re an idiot for arguing that there’s no difference between the intent of copyright in the days of the founders and the purpose of copyright law today.” You cite the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act, the DMCA, and other legislation to argue that there has been a “clear shift” towards protecting the rights of authors. I don’t disagree that Congress has recently passed a series of laws favoring copyright holders, but that doesn’t mean the fundamental purpose of copyright law – to balance those rights with the public good – has been eviscerated. It doesn’t mean that IP is now the same as physical property, or should be treated the same way. And it certainly doesn’t mean that copyright infringement is just like stealing.

3. “Quit calling it theft! You’re not depriving anyone of their property!” You argue that this definition of property is too limited and that the music industry has been in decline. On your first point, see #2 – IP is not physical property, it is a bundle of rights granted to a content producer. One of those rights is the exclusive distribution of the copyrighted work. Therefore, technically, you are not depriving anyone of a physical object when you illegally give away a copyrighted work or sell it for your own profit; instead, you are cannibalizing the profits that person would have made because of his/her exclusive right to distribute the work. On your second point, I agree, but studies are mixed on what harm piracy has inflicted on the music business. The music industry says it’s huge. And, yeah, their profits are down from the 90s CD-buying bonanza. But as someone who spent nearly all of my spare summer job earnings as a teenager buying $20 CDs at monopolistic prices (see http://www.nytimes.com/2000/05/11/business/5-music-companies-settle-federal-case-on-cd-price-fixing.html?pagewanted=1), I can’t say I feel too terribly for the record industry. If it ever reaches the point where music creation is stifled because people can’t make a living any more, we’ll have a problem. But we’re a long, long way from there.

This is theft and a crime for what reason? I gave them money for goods, now it’s up to me as to what I do with it regardless of whether I delete it, copy it, give it away etc…

This is the disconnect I think. They don’t have control of what happens to the copy after it’s sold and make no mistake, it is just a copy, they retain the original work and all copyrights associated with it. I think they want to control the content in this manner but it’s simply not feasible.

I say just move on and make the decision to compete directly and create viable alternatives that allow the consumer to get what they want how they want it for a reasonable price without restrictions.

Seriously, we are talking about unlimited goods with hardly any distribution costs. How hard can it be to monetize this?