New Policy: Copyrighted material

[Nanohedron]

It's hard to believe these moral principles plausibly extend so far.

!!!!!! There is no moral basis behind copyright law whatsoever.

Copyright and patent law is statutory, like a speed limit. It is on the books only because it advances a public good, not because there is anything inherently immoral about the speed of 56MPH or building an invention that is less than 14 years old.

There is no natural or moral right to keep other people from repeating what you have said, or controlling the re-use of your stories, tunes, characters etc. These are not like property rights which are natural rights based on an obvious moral code.

I think this is very important because major copyright holders try very hard to make copyrights seem like natural or moral rights. They repeatedly call copyright infringement "stealing," which is legally false, in hopes that you will incorrectly associate copyrights with physical property.

But stealing my wallet is wrong because I have a natural right to my own property. It is nothing like a copyright, which is artificial and only granted as an incentive for me to create.

Caj

Again I will not quarrel. I observe only the
following: If I'm right, Dale's appeal to ethical principles
to motivate his new policy is doubtful; if you're right,
Dale's appeal to ethical principles to motivate his
new policy is a non-starter.
Either way the policy cannot be motivated plausibly
by ethical principles.

Neither one applies. The policy is simply practical: Dale doesn't want trouble, is all. That, not the question of ethics, has been the basis of his appeal, as I read it, and I don't see anything wrong with it. He has enough to do and concern himself with already without fielding inquiries from authors. Simple as that.

[jim stone]

It's hard to believe these moral principles plausibly extend so far.

!!!!!! There is no moral basis behind copyright law whatsoever.

Copyright and patent law is statutory, like a speed limit. It is on the books only because it advances a public good, not because there is anything inherently immoral about the speed of 56MPH or building an invention that is less than 14 years old.

There is no natural or moral right to keep other people from repeating what you have said, or controlling the re-use of your stories, tunes, characters etc. These are not like property rights which are natural rights based on an obvious moral code.

I think this is very important because major copyright holders try very hard to make copyrights seem like natural or moral rights. They repeatedly call copyright infringement "stealing," which is legally false, in hopes that you will incorrectly associate copyrights with physical property.

But stealing my wallet is wrong because I have a natural right to my own property. It is nothing like a copyright, which is artificial and only granted as an incentive for me to create.

Caj

Again I will not quarrel. I observe only the
following: If I'm right, Dale's appeal to ethical principles
to motivate his new policy is doubtful; if you're right,
Dale's appeal to ethical principles to motivate his
new policy is a non-starter.
Either way the policy cannot be motivated plausibly
by ethical principles.

Neither one applies. The policy is simply practical: Dale doesn't want trouble, is all. That, not the question of ethics, has been the basis of his appeal, as I read it, and I don't see anything wrong with it. He has enough to do and concern himself with already without fielding inquiries from authors. Simple as that.

Nope, not what he says.

'In any case, I do believe that an author ought to retain some control over where her copyrighted material appears. I do think there is a potential of wronging an author by reproducing a work, especially an entire work, without her permission.

I didn't mean to imply (which I certainly did) that I'm worried about the legal aspects. I've lost no sleep about it whatever. But, if I write an article, and enter into an arrangement to have it published somewhere, I do think I would feel wronged by someone reproducing it elsewhere without my consent. I don't think I'd get my knickers in too much of a twist over it, but I do think there's a principle involved. Granted, if I spit in any direction, I'm likely to hit a more important principle, but there is one here, I think.'

[Nanohedron]

Fair enough, and I would expect Dale to weigh in on the discussion. Still, this from the original post:

On two different occasions, I have had to respond to authors whose works have been reproduced without permission on Chiff & Fipple related websites. Happily, both cases worked out well. But, I've done some light reading on fair use and copyrights and message boards and it leaves me with the impression that I'm at some risk when we copy the text of articles from other publications and paste them on these forums. So, if you find something copyrighted that you want to share with others, please provide an external link to the piece, rather than cutting and pasting it.

Sounds altogether practical to me however one slices and dices the ethics of it.

[jim stone]

Fair enough, and I would expect Dale to weigh in on the discussion. Still, this from the original post:

On two different occasions, I have had to respond to authors whose works have been reproduced without permission on Chiff & Fipple related websites. Happily, both cases worked out well. But, I've done some light reading on fair use and copyrights and message boards and it leaves me with the impression that I'm at some risk when we copy the text of articles from other publications and paste them on these forums. So, if you find something copyrighted that you want to share with others, please provide an external link to the piece, rather than cutting and pasting it.

Sounds altogether practical to me however one slices and dices the ethics of it.

Nano, please let me suggest you reread the thread.

Dale's legal 'impression of risk' was abandoned in his post I quoted above,
' I didn't mean to imply that I'm worried about the legal aspects,'
largely as a consequence of Caj's post (Caj has a doctorate
from Princeton in communications and explains cogently why there is
no legal risk).

As to the two incidents, Dale writes later:

'One of the two incidents I've had I'd rather not discuss on the board. It ended up perfectly well, but there are some people involved I don't want to call out publicly. Also, in fairness, it really doesn't apply that well.

The other incident was from a few years ago when I re-published, in much of the same way that jim has, an article from the Irish Times about Paddy Moloney playing the whistle at 9/11 Ground Zero. I admired the piece, and I think I put it in its entirety, with full credit to the author and the Irish Times, in the newsletter. (Which, of course, is archived on the web.) At some point, thru the miracle of Google, I heard from the author who billed me. I responded promptly and courteously and she withdrew with equal courtesy but reminded me that it would have been no problem at all had I requested permission, which I hadn't done.'

In short, in all the years of chiffandfipple there has been one
relevant incident of an author complaining about her work being
published, it happened a few years ago,
and it concerned something that Dale published in
the Newsletter, nothing about the message board.
So the argument that the policy is needed to spare Dale
the nuisance of corresponding with disgruntled authors
about our message-board posts is very weak.

Dale started to justify the policy apparently by
adverting to a legal worry. This was effectively
answered by Caj. Dale then shifted (you will find the whole post if
you reread) to the ethical concern we've been discussing.
This has been his real concern all along.

[Nanohedron]

Yes, I see now that practical issues are iffy. Carry on.

[jim stone]

Thank you. You are a prince among moderatorers.

[Bloomfield]

Dale started to justify the policy apparently by
adverting to a legal worry. This was effectively
answered by Caj. Dale then shifted (you will find the whole post if
you reread) to the ethical concern we've been discussing.
This has been his real concern all along.

I won't quarrel. But I'll just point out that Dale's concern in formulating a posting policy is legal - an never mind how intense his concern is. That does not preclude Dale from being curious about and interested in the moral or ethical aspects. A discussion of the fat content of fois gras does not mean that one is blind to the geese's cruel fate (and vice versa).

[talasiga]

Thank you Bloomfield for presenting us another view on Dale's position.
I trust Dale is persuaded by it.

[talasiga]

Two things I have wondered about Australia's copyright. Does crown copyright still have greater power than regular copyright, and I heard that public performances (such as school performances) of “public domain” music can still be subject to taxation, is this true?

Are you talking about royalties and the work of public (civil) servants? How is this relevant to the issue at hand?

[Dale]

Dale started to justify the policy apparently by
adverting to a legal worry. This was effectively
answered by Caj. Dale then shifted (you will find the whole post if
you reread) to the ethical concern we've been discussing.
This has been his real concern all along.

Yikes. I was just thinking maybe we shouldn't oughta re-print an entire copyrighted work here without permission. That's what I was thinking.

[Dale]

Dale started to justify the policy apparently by
adverting to a legal worry. This was effectively
answered by Caj. Dale then shifted (you will find the whole post if
you reread) to the ethical concern we've been discussing.
This has been his real concern all along.

Stand by. I'm working on a theological argument.

[gonzo914]

Stand by. I'm working on a theological argument.

If you are thinking about re-printing information from a copyrighted source, you should stop and ask yourself "WWJR -- What Would Jesus Reprint?"

[I.D.10-t]

Two things I have wondered about Australia's copyright. Does crown copyright still have greater power than regular copyright, and I heard that public performances (such as school performances) of “public domain” music can still be subject to taxation, is this true?

Are you talking about royalties and the work of public (civil) servants? How is this relevant to the issue at hand?

It isn't. You mentioned international concerns of copyrights, an it reminded me of these two things. I thought that this thread had left Dale's policy and had gone to copyright in general. Sorry if it was OT.

[jim stone]

Dale started to justify the policy apparently by
adverting to a legal worry. This was effectively
answered by Caj. Dale then shifted (you will find the whole post if
you reread) to the ethical concern we've been discussing.
This has been his real concern all along.

Yikes. I was just thinking maybe we shouldn't oughta re-print an entire copyrighted work here without permission. That's what I was thinking.

You are the ultimate interpreter of what you meant.
If this is what it all comes down to, it seems an insufficient
ground for the prohibition.

[jim stone]

Dale started to justify the policy apparently by
adverting to a legal worry. This was effectively
answered by Caj. Dale then shifted (you will find the whole post if
you reread) to the ethical concern we've been discussing.
This has been his real concern all along.

Stand by. I'm working on a theological argument.

That might help.