tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4640470443420164863.post5567023354770054562..comments2024-03-26T10:26:51.288-04:00Comments on Jim Leff's Slog: The Ethics of Illegal Downloading: UpdateJim Leffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00007232702717055047noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4640470443420164863.post-17171157323796844012010-06-02T09:33:40.212-04:002010-06-02T09:33:40.212-04:00-----------
"Randy Cohen's willingness, o...-----------<br />"Randy Cohen's willingness, oft demonstrated in his column, to discount the unethical nature of lawbreaking makes this topic more complicated than it needs to be. "<br />-----------<br /><br />Cohen does hastily dispense with the legality issue. On the other hand, he's following in footsteps of centuries of ethicists who draw a firm dichotomy between ethical behavior and obedient behavior. It goes without saying that laws can be immoral, and that unethical behavior can be legal. And Cohen's an ethicist, not a lawyer or lawmaker. And I'm discussing ethics, not legalities.<br /><br />And I think you've barked up the wrong tree by using the "stolen property" argument. That doesn't stand up well; Cohen, in the radio show which spurred this discussion, did take time to make the rather obvious point that, unlike a stolen wallet or car (or, for that matter, a stolen book or DVD), the rights owner loses no actual property in an illegal download. <br /><br />That, of course, doesn't by itself justify the downloading.<br /><br />As a writer/musician, I have keen interest in seeing people pay. But it's not going to happen via weak arguments and outmoded IP law and business models. We're overdo for a revamp. Fortunately, there's one single thing 99% agree on: the people who create deserve to get paid. And that's actually a very hopeful thing.<br /><br />Remember how everyone was so surprised when iTunes proved so popular? No one expected billions of $1 downloads of material that could be had for free elsewhere. But it worked. People are willing to do the right thing if offered a vehicle that makes sense. They're not going to do the right thing as a result of dodgy rants about obsolete legal models of property theft. The creative industries need to wake up and see that they need to find smarter carrots, not bigger sticks.<br /><br />Everyone wants creatives paid. Awesome. Time for innovation, no?Jim Leffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00007232702717055047noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4640470443420164863.post-46214612663887448912010-06-02T08:49:09.810-04:002010-06-02T08:49:09.810-04:00Randy Cohen's willingness, oft demonstrated in...Randy Cohen's willingness, oft demonstrated in his column, to discount the unethical nature of lawbreaking makes this topic more complicated than it needs to be. Property is owned by the person who creates it or buys it, and just taking that property without permission or paying for it because you can get away with it is unethical. Seth is right; Jeff's weird "balance of ethics" argument is, like 99% of the justifications for illegal downloading, a rationalization, and a tortured one at that. Everyone pays, because once you start letting the property go---not just be temporarily borrowed by, but owned---by people who don't pay, nobody will pay.Jack Marshallhttp://www.ethicsalarms.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4640470443420164863.post-67450183536854234412010-05-27T10:46:00.970-04:002010-05-27T10:46:00.970-04:00"There are people in the Author's Guild w..."There are people in the Author's Guild who are against public libraries. This is such an economically and morally flawed argument that it makes me gasp"<br /><br /><br />I've heard successful Hollywood screenwriters make an interesting point: yes, the changes the studio tries to impose on your script are inevitably stupid and heavy-handed. But you must bear in mind that while the changes always suck (studio execs are not creative people), the REASON for the changes is always a bona fide script problem. So the trick is to disregard the bad suggestions, home in on the problems that elicited them, and find better solutions. (I'll add my own maxim: The stupider the proposed solution, the more intractable the underlying problem.)<br /><br />I find this a wonderfully enlightened point of view, and try to apply it to daily life. When I see stupendously bad suggestions, like abolishing libraries, there's inevitably a stupendously intractable problem behind it. Such is the case here.<br /><br /> It's never been easy to subsist as a creative person, and it's getting even harder. Intellectual property law is past the point of obsolete, and creatives need protection, because the powerful operate gleefully in an essentially lawless zone. So rather than knock the stupid solution, why not psych out some better ones? Hey, Randy at least tried!Jim Leffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00007232702717055047noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4640470443420164863.post-41273440866303454862010-05-27T09:25:34.296-04:002010-05-27T09:25:34.296-04:00Ah, the last word...
Randy, are you saying that t...Ah, the last word...<br /><br />Randy, are you saying that the market for used cars doesn't help GM by lowering the actual economic cost of buying a new car? <br /><br />Or that the market for used houses doesn't help Toll Bros?<br /><br />There are people in the Author's Guild who are against public libraries. This is such an economically and morally flawed argument that it makes me gasp.Seth Godinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15618554622444925936noreply@blogger.com