A friend of mine, and respected colleague, has written a piece over on LinuxToday that bears mentioning: Editor’s Note: Copying is Stealing. Though I agree with the spirit of the piece, I have to take issue with the conflation of stealing and copying.
I really hate it when people conflate copying with stealing.
I see my work plagiarized or copied on other sites all the time. Sometimes it’s automated by spammers, occasionally it’s deliberately copied by other authors thinking they can pad their own work or build their own blog with other people’s content. It annoys me to no end. It’s copyright infringement, and I will go after people who do it — but it is not stealing.
Stealing is the actual act of depriving someone of something, and relates to physical goods. Just because people understand “stealing == bad” does not excuse conflating infringement with theft.
Allowing the terms to be mixed allows the entertainment industry to relate copying of owned media to theft. “Well, just because you bought the VHS copy of Tron doesn’t mean you can copy it to another medium. That’s theft!” Well, no, that’s infringement — technically — and it deserves an honest discussion whether or not it’s wrong.
The argument that infringement “deprives” the artist of anything is far from proven, anyway. A lot of people copy files that they would never, in a million years, pay for. I’d argue that the copy hoarders are wrong, but it also doesn’t deprive the original copyright holder of diddly — because those people were never going to part with any cash in the first place.
Infringement very often benefits the artists. When does stealing benefit the owner? (Not counting insurance claims…)
When I was 16, and before all the “piracy” and “stealing” nonsense had really gotten into full swing, a friend of mine copied Robyn Hitchcock’s first album to a cassette for me. (Black Snake Diamond Role) Since that time, I’ve purchased virtually every recording he’s released, some twice — on cassette and then on CD. I’ve also purchased most of R.E.M.’s work because the first opportunity I had to see Robyn Hitchcock live was as an opener for R.E.M. Also The Minus 5, The Soft Boys, and many others – either direct ties to his work, or in the search of more work like his.
I can draw a straight line from that copied album to more than 200 CD sales of his and related artists. This doesn’t include anyone who’s heard my recommendation of a Robyn Hitchcock recording, or artists I discovered as a direct result of that. Also a trip to Seattle to see him perform live in 2006. (Of course, Hitchcock was the least beneficiary of that – as the ticket to the venue was less than $20 with the annoying surcharges – whereas the entire trip was upwards of $500.)
But the recording industry would want you to think that the 15-year-old girl (at the time) who copied the album was “stealing” the music and depriving Robyn Hitchcock and his record company of a legitimate sale. Given half a chance, the RIAA would probably like to sue her for maximum damages. (Assuming the label was even affiliated with the RIAA, which I’m not sure is the case.)
It is more complex than “infringement always equals theft” and dumbing it down to “infringement is stealing!” is a disservice. It is not a black and white issue, and it deserves more than a slogan-sized response.
I believe in buying media or digital media when I enjoy it. The more than 7 boxes of DVDs and 6 boxes of CDs I have yet to fully unpack attest to that. I’ve easily spent more than $20,000 in the last 20 years on DVDs and CDs, just for my own use — not counting money I’ve spent to gift things I think others will enjoy.
In short — I find myself largely in agreement with the spirit of Carla’s piece, but find myself unable to endorse it because of the black and white nature of “infringement is stealing.” They are not the same thing, it is not a black and white issue, and falling on the side of those who would simplify it to that level is a mistake.
Also, photographing someone is kidnapping.
I’ve given up on keeping anything physical. I now donate my DVDs, books, and CDs to the public library. They no longer hold me down.
Do I keep copies of some of what I gave away? Rarely. If I’m going to use it again, I keep it, but I never reread books and I never rarely rewatch movies, and CDs I don’t listen to I won’t listen to.
I agree. As someone who does GPL enforcement, I’m always very clear: you can’t “steal” GPL’d software. You can infringe the copyright by failing to comply with the GPL.
I had the same response you did, Joe… And as someone who’s been on the receiving end of the act of infringement (More infringed copies of Ballistics are about than the physical copies sold…and I’m one of the developers for the Linux version of that game…) I can tell you I can agree with the spirit of what she’s trying to accomplish, but when she made the mistake of conflating theft with infringement, she failed and made it a muddied up attempt at things.
You can’t “steal” anything except a physical item. The laws are explicit on that.
You can violate my right to control the production of something, but that’s not the same thing and reducing it to black and white like entirely too many people do, you dilute severely what you tried to accomplish with the attempt to get people to see the problems within doing unauthorized copying. It is just along the same lines as the companies violating my Copyrights when they don’t honor the GPL (and yes, I do have stuff in the wild that if I caught them not honoring, I’d be talking with SFLC on the spot over it…)- and we rightly get all righteous over the act. But did they steal? Nope. Are they actionable for breaking the law. Very much so.
Thank you for writing this. There are good arguments to both sides, but saying that downloading music is stealing is RIAA’s marketing ploy. I wish more people called them out on it.
Zonker, hitting raw nerves again as usual.
I agree in principle, but in practice I’d have to say that there is no way to explain that difference to the 95% of people out there who only really know “good vs. evil”, “right vs. wrong”, etc. and the boundaries for media, software, and anything else easily copied are blurry. I admit that I include myself in that 95% because I don’t feel that I really understand when copying is ok.
Example: I had an identical anecdote to yours (with my cousin who sent me Rush’s “Fly By Night”… or was it “Hemispheres”?) and always felt guilt about it, at least until I had bought several of their albums twice and paid $40 to see them live with 35,000 other geeks. Oddly, though, I never felt guilty about taping music from radio broadcasts, or recording TV shows or broadcast movies, even though I have felt guilty about downloading things I couldn’t find any other way. Why do you suppose that is?
I propose that my moral center with regard to media is out of whack with reality, and that in that way I am no different from 95% of other people out there.
Here’s another related anecdote. I have been on the receiving end of infringement in the case of blatant plagiarism. A short story I wrote many years ago won a small award and has thus remained online. A few years ago, someone who read it in the early 90s and enjoyed it went back to find it again and discovered that some punk at a respected university had published the text, word for word, in his own name in their college literary magazine, which was evidently a requirement for graduation in his major.
I informed the university in question and demanded and got a takedown. I never found out if they stripped him of his degree (he had already graduated by then) and now they have stopped responding to my requests for information. I suspect not. Ironically, the punk is now a lawyer, so obviously made it into law school.
The situation made me angry, but I realized I had only been morally transgressed against. I couldn’t sue because there was no financial loss. I received no money when the story was published in the first place, and the punk received no payment when he published it. Legally, there was no loss. However, it sure felt like stealing to me, and calling it “infringement” instead doesn’t ease the moral outrage I felt—and still feel—about it.
The same issues come out with regard to the rampant plagiarism in the blogosphere. I’m sure all of us who have blogged have been infringed multiple times, with or without our knowledge. If someone attributes my text to me and links back to my page, I consider it a win. If not, then it’s plagiarism, and I complain. With no real loss and no physical evidence, it isn’t technically stealing, but morally I don’t see the difference. Whether it is called stealing or infringement, someone used something of mine for their own gain. I don’t have to sustain actual loss in order to feel pissed off about it.
Sorting it out with media is really tough for me. I really have to boil it down to the artist’s intent in order to make any sense. I didn’t want my stuff copied, so I have a right to be angry. Musicians who send their stuff to radio stations want it to be played, so if I make a copy and play it for my friends I am helping, not transgressing. What about forwarding a youtube link, though? How is that substantially different from making a copy of the same bits and emailing them to someone?
The authors of software that comes with licensing restrictions, free or otherwise, have signaled their intent as to how that software should be copied and used. If I can’t determine intent, I try to play it safe. If it turns out I have transgressed, I try to make it right. I think that’s all I can really do.
@Jefro – thanks for the really insightful comment. This is why I don’t think we should be equating infringement with stealing – there’s thought necessary to sort out what’s right and what isn’t, and just boiling it down to handwavy pronouncements of “OMG! Your stealing my content!” is doing a disservice to everybody involved in the discussion.
How is it not stealing? When you take something that you have no right to, is that not stealing? No difference if it is a tangible good or a batch of electrons. Digital media are so very easy to casually copy and re-distribute, and it’s the artists who end up taking the hit. I think strong language is appropriate to break through the “Oh it’s no big deal” attitude around copying and sharing. Mr. Brockmeier, I wonder if your attitude would be different if you were trying to sell books, and saw copies of them all over the Internet on “trading” sites. Mr. Kuhn, same question for you– it’s easy to be blase when you are on a salary, or get paid once to write a magazine article. What if your income were dependent on sales? How long can you afford to write books or articles if your “customers” do not pay you? That is certainly a theft, since they possess copies of your work they did not pay for.
Ian, read the effing post before spouting off. I never said it’s “no big deal” and I don’t endorse it. I just don’t think it equates to stealing. Stealing relates to physical property, period. End of story. I have it, you don’t.
That doesn’t make copyright infringement right, but it isn’t the same thing. I’m not arguing in support of copyright infringement – I’m arguing in support of being precise in language.
I can agree with what you’re saying. It bothers me that it’s labeled as stealing. It’s wrong, but it certainly shouldn’t be maximum punishment. In most cases, infringing doesn’t even take a tangible customer from them anyways–not that it’s alright to do. I have a problem with a person having their life ruined without a right to correct themselves for something which probably did little or no harm. I’ve pirated. Yet I’ve also bought works I appreciated, and I intend to buy more of them as I get the money. I’m not sure, but in a more perfect world: perhaps if people were encouraged to buy works they enjoyed, pirated or not, we might all profit (actually, I have another theory that may solve all this but it will never be adopted).