Piracy in islam?

[qassy!]

What about watching/listening Youtube loool

well........if ur not downloading the content from YouTube, I dont really see anything wrong with it.

 

[Abdul Fattah]

Hi czgibson

I think Steve argues the case from a theoretical point of view quite well, although I would ask him this:
If there were no copyright law, wouldn't a massive incentive be removed for artists, inventors, writers, filmmakers and musicians? Wouldn't that actually stultify our culture, sending us back to the days when only the wealthy and leisure-rich would produce anything creative? Why embark on that if there is no potential financial reward whatever?

I doubt it'd be really that bad, people don't just make creative things because of the money it pays or the leisure time spent. People make art to express point of views, to teach or to see kacceptance from society, to shock, to get girls, there's tons of reasons. And even without copyrights, artists could still make a living just not that high a living as some currently make, no their work would be rewarded by the hour, like any other worker in any other buisness. I don't see what's wrong with that.

Let's face it, people don't always create things just because they were feeling inspired one day. Often the fruits of creative work are only revealed after years of patient study. Shouldn't we encourage creativity in our society?

Well I think abandoning copyright actually encourages creativity. Copying is human nature. From childhood on we learn by copying from one another. In sociology we see how adults are influenced by peer pressure. The most famous scientists all based their work on those that preceeded them by copying the process and adding something more. And when competition is harder, people tend to push themselves further. Secondly consider that ideas multiply. Say if we each have a dollar, and I give my dollar to you and you give your dollar to me, then we still each have one dollar. However if I share my idea with you, and you share yours with me, then we both have two ideas.

Hi Sixten

Wrong, I don't know why people try justify it.

So you're naturally assuming my justification is false and my intentions are doubious. Can you read my mind, can you see my intentions? It's easy to just claim that I am wrong and bad without proving it. You should better look in your own heart cause you are slandering me. If you want to bring your opinion and debate against my arguments, be welcome to do so. But just attacking me without any base to back that up is just wrong.

Hi Qassi!

well........if ur not downloading the content from YouTube, I dont really see anything wrong with it.

Actually when you watch something in streaming, your internet-browser downloads the video and saves it in a temporary file. So it's the same thing.

Hi Whatsthepoint

It's not just the discovery of the substance that's expensive, its also the development, safety tests, trials on humans etc, so the end costs of an original drug are huge, usually a couple of hundred of millions, sometimes even more.

Yes I know, and despite that I still stand by my counter that you need to take this figure with a big pinch of salt.

So suppose a company invests millions in the development of a drug and a rival company happens to discover the formula or gets it say from an employee, spends a couple of millions on clinical tests and starts selling it under a lower price, getting the market advantage. This could cause a lot of companies to stop developing new drugs. And besides, even if there still were competition and creativity, people could still use other people's ideas and gain money, which I personally find wrong.

Well like I said, it won't be millions, and despite that, there is still profit to be made. It might take a few extra years to break even. But they would still make a profit, just a slightly smaller one.

Other fields of research may do well without the protection of patents, but I don't think the pharmaceutical industry is among them.

Perhaps you're right about that. Be that as it may, I still think its profitable without exclusive rights

What about logos and slogans, do you think a company has the sole right to use its company logo or should those be public property as well?

No, that is one of the few exceptions. In trademarks, there's not only the issue of freedom to copy, but there's also the issue of lying (by pretending to be someone else) and damaging reputaion (if the counterfit is of inferior quality as the origenal). So because of that, trademark infringement can be argued to be unethical.

Medical science and pharmaceutical science are two separate sciences.

Patatoes, Phatatos. They are different yes, but my argument stands for pharmaceuticle science to. All the major advancements, peniciline, antibiotics, many of the vaccins, anti-inflamatories, or even the simple acetylcalycil; all of those have not been made by multinationals.

Governments and NPOs do not develop new drugs, a government can introduce laws to encourage pharmaceutical companies to make the more affordable or develop non-profitable drugs, NPOs can raise money and ship the drugs to Africa. In these days it is impossible to discover a healing substance and develop it into a drug without the backing of a pharmaceutical company.

Perhaps not the American Government, but many European, SouthAmerican, middle eastern, and azian countries have state hospitals who do reasearch in pharmaceutics to. My home country Belgium is a leading example as a matter of fact and many new advancements come from these hospitals.

Nature does exhibits certain properties I'm not denying that.
But just because wolfram glows under the electric current that doesn't mean the idea of putting wolfram under the electric current existed prior to Edison doing it.

But then again I could argue that an idea is an abstract concept and thus never truely exists.

The tree-sound and math analogies are analogies, not really the best ones, sound waves are a physical phenomena, so is addition in a way. Tell me, why do you you think you can deduct these to example to every single idea? And how can you prove your deductions are true?

True, the tree analogy is false since it refers to something physical. However, I didn't bring it as an analogy, I brought it up since both cases deal with the same underlying philosophical idea. Secondly math is abstract just as ideas, and therefor that analogy would still stand.

To answer your second point, the physical laws are the same all over the world, friction works the same, gravity works the same etc. Humans too are pretty much the same, our brain and its capabilities to solve problems are similar in all people, so I don't see it all that strange that separate cultures came to similar solutions when dealing with similar problems. That and the fact that humans, no matter if you're a creationist or an evolutionist, derive from the same area, so certain human ways passed on from the original human or primate society to all the later societies.

Yes of course, similar results from simular processes. I won't argue with that. However that doesn't change my point. My point was that these ideas are not exclusivly linked to the first thinker and therfor neither should the right to use that idea be linked to the first thinker exclusivly.

And even if ideas exist independently, that doesn't mean people can't claim ownership over their inventions, they were the first to discover the idea, so in a way its technically theirs, like uninhabited land.

Here you fall under the material vs abstract flaw again. In the case of land, we're dealing with material possesion, and theft in the case that someone tries to illegaly disown that land.

And for the most part they put a lot of effort in it and IMHO that is a reason enough for their ideas to be protected by law.

I already answered that before didn't I? I think you're running in circles now.

I don't think we can prove whether it is ethical or logical, as I believe these two categories aren't absolute (you can prove the opposite if you want),

I stronglt disagree here, even though one can never "prove" a philosophical school of thought, we are at some point forced to accept one viewor the other. If we do not, every single argument you make about pretty much anything would fail. Every law would be pointless without philosophy of etics and logic. In fact you can't even argue without logic! These two schools of thought are essential to any debate. To say that you want nothing to do with it, yet continue debating is in a way even hypocrite.

but we can argue about benefits to the society or the individual, which again leaves us at unprovable premises, that is what matters more, the well-being of the society as a whole or individual rights. It often comes down to this.

Yes it does, as I already pointed out several posts ago ^_^

What I'm saying is that both material theft and piracy are a subset of theft, so just because the subsets are different they can still belong to the same set.

Yes i know you point already, and what I am saying is that this is simply not true. Not semantically, not linguistically and not philosophically.

As I said, piracy deprives the inventor of potential profits and I don't see why this shouldn't be considered a form of theft.

Because it's circular. You assume that the profits are rightfully theirs in the first place, then you use that assumption to argue that copyrights should be protected. And since copyrights should be protected, the fruit of the idea should be exclusivly theirs. Well that's flawed by circularity, you can never use that which you set out to prove in your proof.

You claim they're abstract, but at the same time you claim ideas exist independently, so why not profits?

Do you question wheter ideas are abstract? How can they not be abstract? There is no indication once so ever of a material nature of an idea. As far as we know they are sticttly conceptual and not objects. To imply that they are not abstract is insane. And in fact this very charesteristic, their abstractness by itself guarantees that these ideas are independent, isolated on their own.

 

[abs]

i also guess wat whatsthepoint said is true, if u copy something without the owners permission its basically called a theft

 

[qassy!]

Hi Qassi!

Actually when you watch something in streaming, your internet-browser downloads the video and saves it in a temporary file. So it's the same thing.

Hi Whatsthepoint

Yes I know, and despite that I still stand by my counter that you need to take this figure with a big pinch of salt.

Well like I said, it won't be millions, and despite that, there is still profit to be made. It might take a few extra years to break even. But they would still make a profit, just a slightly smaller one.

Sites that are desgined to stream movies are illegal. YouTube is a legal website,when consumers visit the website they type in what ever they want knowing there visitng a legal website. Looking at it from that context makes YouTube liable.

 

[truemuslim]

yeh all the movies that just come out here in america are already on dvd in yemen. piracy.
cant answer u question tho but its a waste of time and its doing something ur not supposed to do behind people backs so figure it out from ther

 

[Whatsthepoint]

But then again I could argue that an idea is an abstract concept and thus never truely exists.

I think I can agree with that. Abstract concepts and ideas, such as putting wolfram under the electric current, exist in the human mind, I don't think you can prove they exists independently, you haven't so far. Mathematics is a human invention, its a human attempt to describe nature and its laws, the equation 1+1=2 doesn't exist outside the human mind, though some sort of addition exist in nature and it is not abstract.

Do you question wheter ideas are abstract? How can they not be abstract? There is no indication once so ever of a material nature of an idea. As far as we know they are sticttly conceptual and not objects. To imply that they are not abstract is insane. And in fact this very charesteristic, their abstractness by itself guarantees that these ideas are independent, isolated on their own.

As I said, I don't think abstract concepts and ideas exist outside the human mind. So far you nor anyone else have conclusively proven the opposite.

Yes of course, similar results from simular processes. I won't argue with that. However that doesn't change my point. My point was that these ideas are not exclusivly linked to the first thinker and therfor neither should the right to use that idea be linked to the first thinker exclusivly.

Have you proven your point?
I won't argue that a lot of humans have the capacity to create (yes create, not discover) the same idea, but only a few invest work into it and therefore I think they should have some rights over it, especially people who invest large sums of money in their invention. This is an unprovable assumption, I won't deny that, but I don't think you have proven the opposite though I may be missing something.
Lets say a company develops a drug, patents it and shares its findings with everyone else without having to worry their invention would be produced by another company. The other company on the other hand does not patent the drug but keeps its secrets safe. Which system is of greater benefit for science?

I already answered that before didn't I? I think you're running in circles now.

You haven't.

I stronglt disagree here, even though one can never "prove" a philosophical school of thought, we are at some point forced to accept one viewor the other. If we do not, every single argument you make about pretty much anything would fail. Every law would be pointless without philosophy of etics and logic. In fact you can't even argue without logic! These two schools of thought are essential to any debate. To say that you want nothing to do with it, yet continue debating is in a way even hypocrite.

Well, I have chosen my ethical school of though, I don't think ethical norms are absolute, some may be shared by a majority of people, some may derive from society, some from our sense of empathy, but they are not absolute.
However, I believe ethical norms should be followed in order to sustain social cohesion and achieve maximum happiness happiness without infringing the rights of an individual.
I cannot prove my theory is right.
As for logic, sure, rules of logic do exist, but I don't think we can prove all things using logic, in this instance the existence of ideas, we can only make unprovable deductions.

Yes i know you point already, and what I am saying is that this is simply not true. Not semantically, not linguistically and not philosophically. Because it's circular. You assume that the profits are rightfully theirs in the first place, then you use that assumption to argue that copyrights should be protected. And since copyrights should be protected, the fruit of the idea should be exclusivly theirs. Well that's flawed by circularity, you can never use that which you set out to prove in your proof.

You base this on the assumption that an inventor or an artist doesn't have exclusive rights over his work. You haven't proven this assumption, at least not using logic.
It's not circular, it is an assumption that the author holds the right to all profits originating from his or her artwork or a copy thereof. When someone uses an artwork or a copy thereof. The law merely enforces it.

 

[Whatsthepoint]

Yes I know, and despite that I still stand by my counter that you need to take this figure with a big pinch of salt.
Well like I said, it won't be millions, and despite that, there is still profit to be made. It might take a few extra years to break even. But they would still make a profit, just a slightly smaller one.

Well, companies themselves say they spend hundreds of millions on research, and they are a subject to tax inspections like the IRS, so it would be hard for them to cover up millions.
And there's independent institutions that study the industry that provide similar figures.

No, that is one of the few exceptions. In trademarks, there's not only the issue of freedom to copy, but there's also the issue of lying (by pretending to be someone else) and damaging reputaion (if the counterfit is of inferior quality as the origenal). So because of that, trademark infringement can be argued to be unethical.

What about using literary or film characters?

Patatoes, Phatatos. They are different yes, but my argument stands for pharmaceuticle science to. All the major advancements, peniciline, antibiotics, many of the vaccins, anti-inflamatories, or even the simple acetylcalycil; all of those have not been made by multinationals.
Perhaps not the American Government, but many European, SouthAmerican, middle eastern, and azian countries have state hospitals who do reasearch in pharmaceutics to. My home country Belgium is a leading example as a matter of fact and many new advancements come from these hospitals.

Universities and hospitals do make research and discover new healing substances, but the way from the substance to a safe drug on the market is a long and an expensive one, much longer and more expensive than it was in the past, the regulations have changed drastically.
You can't have a drug without the backing of a pharmaceutical company.

yeh all the movies that just come out here in america are already on dvd in yemen. piracy.
cant answer u question tho but its a waste of time and its doing something ur not supposed to do behind people backs so figure it out from ther

This is for you Steve, what do you think about gaining money from pirated material.

 

[czgibson]

Greetings, Steve,

I can see you're involved in some lengthy posting here, so I'm reluctant to take up more of your time.

I think you're brave to stick with your view and carry on defending it in the face of the evident opposition from most of us here, and I commend you for it.

Out of interest: there is something almost Marxist in the egalitarian spirit of your position. I'm not calling you a Communist here or anything, but do you see what I mean? The sharing of ideas, the sharing of wealth. Do you think that copyright is a partial result of capitalism? If some of us weren't living in capitalist societies, do you think we might think differently about this question?

Hi czgibson

I doubt it'd be really that bad, people don't just make creative things because of the money it pays or the leisure time spent. People make art to express point of views, to teach or to see kacceptance from society, to shock, to get girls, there's tons of reasons.

The things you say about the motives for artistic creation are all obvious, but don't detract from the fact that if people were unable to be creative and use it as a career, the number of creative works produced would be drastically diminished. Although that would rid us of an awful lot of dross, it would deprive us of many masterpieces too.

This next sentence prompts so many questions I'm afraid I'm going to have to break it up:

And even without copyrights, artists could still make a living

How could a photographer, for example, make a living if his work could be reproduced by anybody and sold on without a penny going to him? Where would his income come from?

just not that high a living as some currently make,

Have you met any professional artists or musicians lately? It is definitely not the way to make big bucks, unless you're extremely lucky.

no their work would be rewarded by the hour, like any other worker in any other buisness.

By who? If there's no copyright on anything they produce, who is under obligation to give them money?

Or are you proposing an entirely state-funded arts system, or something like that?

Well I think abandoning copyright actually encourages creativity. Copying is human nature. From childhood on we learn by copying from one another. In sociology we see how adults are influenced by peer pressure. The most famous scientists all based their work on those that preceeded them by copying the process and adding something more.

Standing on the shoulders of giants, absolutely. But there's a difference between imitating and copying and passing off as your own, surely.

And when competition is harder, people tend to push themselves further. Secondly consider that ideas multiply. Say if we each have a dollar, and I give my dollar to you and you give your dollar to me, then we still each have one dollar. However if I share my idea with you, and you share yours with me, then we both have two ideas.

But does copyright really prevent the spread of ideas? I don't think you've shown that it does.

While I'm here, I'll say that I think this is one of the most interesting debates I've seen on LI for a long time. Well done to everyone who's taken part: thank you all for making us think.

Peace

 

[Abdul Fattah]

I think I can agree with that. Abstract concepts and ideas, such as putting wolfram under the electric current, exist in the human mind, I don't think you can prove they exists independently,

Well if they don't exist, they cannot exist independently either. But that's just semantics of the word existence. Do concepts exist or not, it's not what matters here but it's an obstacle for our debate. So whether you say that they exist or not isn't really the issue, they still are independently. Anyway this playing around with existence or non-existence is a double cutting sword. I could say that if they don't exist, which you say you agree on, then there is nothing to own and protect in the first place. So since it doesn't really take any weight away from my arguments, I suggest we drop this existence vs non-existence, since neither of us are inclined to one position or the other.

As I said, I don't think abstract concepts and ideas exist outside the human mind. So far you nor anyone else have conclusively proven the opposite.

Well I could reply that I don't think they exist inside the human brain either. But both arguments is playing with words.

Have you proven your point? I won't argue that a lot of humans have the capacity to create (yes create, not discover) the same idea, but only a few invest work into it and therefore I think they should have some rights over it, especially people who invest large sums of money in their invention. This is an unprovable assumption, I won't deny that, but I don't think you have proven the opposite though I may be missing something.

You're running in circles again, every counterargument you place is either some other version of "they own it" or "they put work in it". As if those magical words defeat my arguments.

Lets say a company develops a drug, patents it and shares its findings with everyone else without having to worry their invention would be produced by another company. The other company on the other hand does not patent the drug but keeps its secrets safe. Which system is of greater benefit for science?

Still the system I propose, because it leaves the most freedom. And eventually the secrets aren't the biggest contribution to science. what matters is that scientist understand how it works, and before the meds can be sold they would have to be approved, and therefor the information that is vital for science would be out. If the company keeps some secrets of the trade beside that, there's no harm in that in terms of scientific development.

You haven't.

Euhm it was a rhetorical question, I'm actually 100% confident that I did already reply to that. something about the work only being invested in the original, and then you replied to that, and then I replied to your reply, and then you just went back to square one.

Well, I have chosen my ethical school of though, I don't think ethical norms are absolute, some may be shared by a majority of people, some may derive from society, some from our sense of empathy, but they are not absolute.
However, I believe ethical norms should be followed in order to sustain social cohesion and achieve maximum happiness happiness without infringing the rights of an individual.
I cannot prove my theory is right.
As for logic, sure, rules of logic do exist, but I don't think we can prove all things using logic, in this instance the existence of ideas, we can only make unprovable deductions.

You base this on the assumption that an inventor or an artist doesn't have exclusive rights over his work. You haven't proven this assumption, at least not using logic.

Well the burden of proof is on those who call for the restrictions. If you propose that my actions and freedom to copy should be limited, I expect you to provide the argument, not turn the table on me and ask me to prove the opposite.

It's not circular, it is an assumption that the author holds the right to all profits originating from his or her artwork or a copy thereof. When someone uses an artwork or a copy thereof. The law merely enforces it.

But the assumption comes from the idea that he owns the idea, which in turn you defend by the work he invested, wich in turn you say entitles him to his due profit, which in turn means he has exclusive rights to the fruits of it. See completely circular.

Well, companies themselves say they spend hundreds of millions on research, and they are a subject to tax inspections like the IRS, so it would be hard for them to cover up millions.
And there's independent institutions that study the industry that provide similar figures.

Yeah of course they invest millions, but not all of these investment are on research. With or without copyrights, you have to invest in a fabrication hall, employees, ground materials, office supplies and so on. But those are not the ones that you used in your argument. I mean if a company copies their product, they will have to make these same investments. Your argument was that they should have exclusive rights, because of the investments they made into the development of the product; not the manufacture, transport, packaging and what you have.

What about using literary or film characters?

That is not a trademark issue but a copyright issue, so I see no moral objection with that.

Universities and hospitals do make research and discover new healing substances, but the way from the substance to a safe drug on the market is a long and an expensive one, much longer and more expensive than it was in the past, the regulations have changed drastically.

No, not really they do these things in universities and hospitals here to.

This is for you Steve, what do you think about gaining money from pirated material.

Well I see no moral objections with it, except of course that it is illegal by law. Just because I don't like the law, doesn't mean I find it moral to break the law. So, if a country bars its copyrights laws, I'd say: "yes, pirate away!"