On 26/01/07, David Schlesinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
See whether you get charged with something like theft (or infringement of copyright, which is tantamount to theft...)
Infringement of copyright is very, very different to theft.
>If I shoplift some food from my local >store, no one else can buy it. But when I copy software, no one loses >it and another person gets it. There's no ethical problem. Um, wow. There's no ethical problem, perhaps, as long as the author's agreed that you can give away copies of his work.
Yes, I agree.
Otherwise, there's a very large ethical problem, which you seem to be inexplicably unaware of, somehow.
No, I think we are discussing at cross purposes.
If it's not the author's wish that the software be freely copy-able, which is certainly a desire the author's quite entitled to have
I am less certain, and judging from most people's actions, I think you are in quite a minority with this belief. I mean, most iPods are full of unauthorised copies, even if some of their tracks are licensed from the iTunes Music Store.
you simply have no right whatsoever to make (i.e. "publish") copies of a copyrighted work and give them away. It's illegal. I'm astounded that breaking the law this way presents no "ethical problem" for you.
It is illegal, but the law is not an authority on ethics. It is, at best, an attempt to achieve justice. You seem to be saying, "If copying is forbidden, it must be wrong." But the legal system - at least in the US - rejects the idea that copyright infringement is "theft." You are making an appeal to authority, but misrepresenting what that authority says. The idea that laws decide what is right or wrong is mistaken in general. To say that laws define justice or ethical conduct is turning things upside down.
If you copy software (music, books, other media, etc.) without permission of the author, there most certainly _is_ an ethical problem: you're stealing the possibility of selling a properly paid-for copy from the author.
I'm not sure you can steal a possibility.
Or do you believe that it's "unethical" for an author to a) want to be paid for his work
No, it is totally legitimate for them to want payment, and for us to pay them.
and/or b) be able to set the terms under which his work is made available...?
No, I am not against this. Afterall, without authors being able to set the terms under which their work is made available, we would have no free software :-) As always, thanks for taking the time to discuss issues of freedom and community with me. -- Regards, Dave _______________________________________________ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
