[WendyTheWillow]

Nope, I'm talking about the agreement you consent to when you purchase access to media.

Mass market sales are not a public distribution, just a wide distribution. You must agree to the terms of the sale in order to access the media. You give your word you will not violate those terms, when you purchase it.

Morally speaking, either you believe someone can control their property, or you don't believe that. Sometimes that control involves letting many, but not all, people access that property. If you believe media moves out of someone's control without their consent merely through distribution, then you necessarily do not believe in ownership.

Which is fine, but there is no quasi-ownership concept. Either a person owns and thus controls something, or they do not. Besides, does private property become "public" just because millions of people go there? Does a rental car suddenly become public property once it's passed 100 renters? This concept cannot exist alongside ownership.

[Dylan16807]

> You must agree to the terms of the sale in order to access the media.

Plenty of media doesn't have terms, it just has default copyright. And that's a good thing.

> Morally speaking, either you believe someone can control their property, or you don't believe that. Sometimes that control involves letting many, but not all, people access that property. If you believe media moves out of someone's control without their consent merely through distribution, then you necessarily do not believe in ownership.

Without their consent? Of course not. They have to consent to the distribution.

I believe in limited ownership for ideas.

I'll mention the public domain again, because you haven't addressed that. If you make a movie, eventually it's going to become owned by the public. That's not negotiable.

> Either a person owns and thus controls something, or they do not.

Fair use is also a restriction on the ownership. A big one. So if it's this simple, then "they do not" must be the correct answer for how the world already works.

> go there, rental car

Those are physical items. They don't act like IP. If we apply physical rules to IP, then anyone can copy anything because it doesn't affect the original.

[WendyTheWillow]

As long as you agree that:

(1) when media has stipulations attached to its distribution that you agree to when you purchase access to the media (specifically the stipulation that you're unable to share the media with others), and

(2) both breaking agreements you've made as well as knowingly benefitting from someone else breaking agreements are immoral,

(C) you must therefore agree that piracy of content with said stipulations (most mainstream content) is immoral!

When 1 and 2 don't apply, C doesn't apply, sure. But when 1 and 2 apply, C also applies.

[Dylan16807]

I believe that any restrictions added on top of copyright, for a normal media sale, are themselves immoral.

And I believe that sometimes copyright goes too far, and that breaking it in those cases is not immoral.

So I definitely don't agree with your first postulation, and I might not agree with the second one depending on how that's interpreted.

In particular, a rule that would stop me from watching a movie with friends should never be enforced or enforceable. So a flat-out "no sharing" is not a moral rule. And a rule that stops me from sharing the movie contents when copyright has lapsed is also immoral. I feel like the average person would solidly agree with me on those two statements.

And then on top of that, I suggest a situation where it would make sense for copyright to lapse without being immoral to the creators. And while under the current legal system it doesn't lapse, that's a legal truth that doesn't dictate the morality of acting like it lapsed.

[WendyTheWillow]

If you believe that restrictions on use of property is immoral, then you necessarily do not believe in property rights. Either someone can dictate the terms in which other people use that thing, or they do not own that thing.

That's fine, but it's not very compatible with capitalism.

[Dylan16807]

Ahem.

> Fair use is also a restriction on the ownership. A big one. So if it's this simple, then "they do not" must be the correct answer for how the world already works.

Ownership has restrictions, and ownership on ideas has the most restrictions.

This is very compatible with capitalism.

[WendyTheWillow]

Granted, however this doesn't solve your problem with ownership. Either a person can dictate the terms of how something is used (excepting "fair use" or whatever other exceptions apply) or they do not own that thing.

No version of what you've said supplies sufficient exception to remove a person's ability to stipulate conditional use of a thing.