[anigbrowl]

'torrenting should be legal but content creators should work in the free market, eh?

I sincerely hope someone invents a protocol that will allow me to torrent a few cents out of your bank account every day. OK, that will be inconvenient for you but hey, that's not my problem. Money is just a social construct anyway so it's not like your loss actually matters in the overall scheme of things.

[mbrock]

If money worked like MP3 files, being infinitely copyable in a non-zero sum way, it would indeed be hard to stop people from copying "my" money. Since that's not how it works, banks already successfully protect our accounts. These problems are qualitatively very different.

[anigbrowl]

Surely you are aware that money is not grounded in physical objects but in notional promises and contractual relations. I certainly support the use of any software that enriches me at your expense, since you seem willing to do the same to me.

The flaw in your argument is that you think because mp3 files are copyable that technical reality obviates any moral right of content creator in deciding who they sell to and under what conditions. Since you don't think that content creators should be able to contractually or legally bind people from making copies, why should I care about your equally notional property interest? If you feel somehow diminished by my helping myself to your property, well just make more and sell it or something. It's not my problem.

[cr0sh]

Thought experiment:

I leave $100 on a table, with a sign that says "do not take this money, it belongs to me", and I walk away - maybe to go to the bathroom or something.

You come along and say to yourself "wow, I'd love a hundred dollars, but I can't take that money - it's not mine. However..." - and out of your back pocket you whip out your handy-dandy molecular duplication machine...

...which you then point at the money, press a button, and it spits out an identical duplicate of the money on the table. Satisfied, you walk away.

I come back to the table, see the money undisturbed, pick it up, and go on my way.

Have I somehow lost something or been diminished in some fashion?

Let's say the same thing could be applied to goods - like someone makes a complete copy of your car, at no cost to them. Have you lost something by them now having a copy of your car?

Let's say you build something, perhaps something unique. You create a video of it, and post some pictures of it on Ebay, Youtube, Craigslist, etc - because you want to sell it. Someone studies the design (the videos and images) and recreates it perfectly (this can be done, btw); have you now lost something because they have a copy of the item?

[s73ver]

No. This is not a valid comparison. For one, you are completely forgetting the effort involved in creating the work in the first place.

[ionised]

That effort doesn't suddenly become meaningless because a copy is made.

[mbrock]

I think that content creators simply are not able to prevent copying. If I have a folder of mp3s on my computer and my friend asks for a copy, it's so easy for me to say yes and just copy the files, instead of saying "sorry, this material is copyrighted, and I must concede the moral rights of the content creator and deny your wish." If a content creator wishes to stop this kind of heinous immoral piracy, how will they go about? Well, putting spyware and rootkits onto music CDs is a good start, right? Then move on to combating the open internet.