I feel for the kid. I still grimace when I think of bragging to the game warden when I was 4, about how my dad caught a salmon with his bare hands. Of course, it wasn't fishing season, nor did we have a license. Even at 4, as soon as I said it, I knew I had screwed up. Luckily, everybody just laughed, as the game warden was a friend, but to this day, that slip of the tongue reminds me to think before I speak.
>“Pirated handbags? Yes, I do buy them,” she said. “I feel that the genuine Prada bags have such an inflated price.”
I feel that lumping handbags in here is wrong. There's probably a trademark infringement as well with the handbags. But, whilst there is copyright infringement in the design does the design have an artistic quality or is it "just" a design. The fact that there is a skill and materials expense in producing the handbags gives it a different quality IMO.
The important part with the handbags is the infringement of the Prada trademark whilst with the books and music it is the copyright infringement.
Except that wildlife is a limited resource that needs to be protected from poachers. It's only like piracy if you think there is an unlimited supply of wildlife that anyone should be able to take as they like.
As an avid fly fisherman, I completely agree; however, it's often very difficult for people to conceptualize that wildlife is a limited resource. How does my taking a fish that is a half inch under the limit really hurt anyone? What about an extra fish? Or fishing after dark when it's illegal? The negative effects are often extremely far removed from the initial act. That doesn't make it ok, but it does explain why many people who would never steal from a store will break all kinds of Fish and Game laws.
This is tragedy of the commons -- if one person does it, there is no real harm but if everyone does it then there will be no fish left for anyone. A lot of people can conceptualize this but many others rely on the fact that other people don't break the rules.
Music piracy is similar. Piracy works right now because there are enough people buying music and the margins are high enough that those legitimate buyers are supporting the pirates. Only at the point that creating music is unprofitable will piracy be affected (no more fish in the sea). I don't see that happening for a long time.
There are some devout pirates who simply will not buy, but I suspect they would not buy even if they had another option — these are the people who would tape songs off the radio and copy their friends' CDs. They're either people who just refuse to pay for things or too poor to pay for things. But you can't generalize this to "pirates."
The zillions of unsigned bands wailing on guitars in every bar from Thursday to Sunday suggest that there'd still be plenty of music, even if there was no way to sell recordings.
True, but those breaking the fish and game laws may not be hurting anyone. They may disagree with the law. Especially because the fish and game laws only apply to public property. It'd be more analogous to going to a private reserve or piece of land and disregarding the owners regulations.
An ebook, mp3, or other digital object can be considered an unlimited resource, the creator of said object is a limited resource, and they do deserve protection.
That said, authors and artists like the lady in the article are hurting themselves when they choose not to make their works available to people in the format they want, especially when it is very easy to convert those works into different formats, or at least easy enough that people are willing to do it.
This is really an excellent observation. Thank you for sharing.
One consequence, it seems, would be that a work would enter public domain as soon as the creator dies, since the only remaining resource (the digital work) is unlimited.
There definitely needs to be meaningful copyright reform. Having works of art enter the public domain upon the death of the creator seems pretty fair, although there should probably be an extension for cases where children under the age of 18 are involved. And, of course, there should be an absolute time limit on all copyrights in the cases where they're assigned to corporations.
