BBC Blog Network

User Profile

Magwitch

Listed below are comments made by Magwitch between Friday, 28th November 2008 and Wednesday, 30th September 2009.

«Newer
Older»

Lily unites musicians against file-sharing 11:40am on 30 Sep 2009 @barometer-rising

It may well be “doing your head in” but you are simply wrong on the ethics and the law (the Theft Act is irrelevant, this is the applicable law: http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p01_uk_copyright_law) and facile insistence that the fundamental distinction between copyright infringement and theft does not exist (except as an excuse made by thieves) is shot-in-the-foot wrong:

``"Copyright infringement is not 'theft' in the same way that taking a CD from a store is theft," said Mark Lemley, a copyright expert at Stanford University Law School. "If I take your physical property, I have it and you no longer do. If I copy your song, I have it, but so do you."

Legal scholars aren't the only ones making that point. You'll see it again and again in discussions online about the propriety, morality and economic impact of file sharing. To Lemley, that suggests the entertainment industry's choice of metaphors has backfired. "Let me be clear: copyright infringement is wrong, and should be punished," he wrote in a recent e-mail. "But simplistic statements that infringement is 'just like' stealing a CD, or using a room in my house, are wrong. They are also counterproductive, because people instinctively know they are wrong, and so they are likely to ignore histrionics of this sort."''

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/web/la-oew-healey18feb18,0,7696645.story

(Unfortunately, Lemley's insight and warning is largely ignored in the rest of that op-ed.)

If those of us who maintain that it is indeed immoral (and unlawful) to engage in certain acts of copyright infringement cannot at the same time make this simple but crucial distinction - presumably because we actually believe that copyright infringement is *not* immoral?!!! - and continue to perversely and falsely assert that copyright infringement simply /is/ theft, the bad guys will always have an argument and/or an excuse.
Lily unites musicians against file-sharing 2:15pm on 26 Sep 2009 #61: Yes, sorry about that, ravenmorpheus2k.

#62 “Why people have so much difficulty in getting that through their heads I do not understand” --Gurubear

Unfortunately (some of) our heads have been obstructed by knowledge of the theory, moral arguments, history and economics behind the copyright laws, forcing us to realise what an appallingly elementary mistake it is - especially for those of us who support (sane) copyright laws! - to erroneously conflate copyright infringement and theft.

Some acts of copyright infringement can be construed as consequentially very like theft of course. But most can't really, and none can be equated with it. What I can't understand is why some people think it's a good idea to shout “Stop thief!” instead of “Stop infringer!” or something similar. It's totally unnecessary and increasingly counterproductive, in a Peter and the Wolf-ish sort of way IMHO.
Lily unites musicians against file-sharing 04:43am on 26 Sep 2009 “Ok, now we have established that copyright infringement is not criminal theft of property, we are left with tort law, under which the copyright holder must prove damages...” --ravenmorpheus2k (#58).

No, we are left with the - excellent in principle but now massively unbalanced and misrepresented - copyright law.

I sometimes wonder how this debate might be going (or even if it would be going at all) in a parallel world in which idiotic and idiotically named groups (like the Federation Against Copyright Theft) hadn't done such a great disservice to the people whose interests they pretend to represent by bringing the very idea of copyright to the brink of disrepute - with their absurd copyright term extensions, criminalisations of technological progress, their frothing Judge Dredd-ism and fantasy economics etc.
The PM Glass Box. 10:27am on 24 Jul 2009 I think even that disclosure would've been utterly inadequate, paula_thomas (#64). Halvorsen just should not have been on the programme at all. Far from being a sceptic with valid points and criticisms to make he is, as is well known, the very antithesis of a sceptic - working actively against the interests of public health. Hints, subtle or otherwise, that the words we're about to hear are likely to be extremely misleading and possibly even dangerous to us should not be necessary in the first place.
Newsnight and Newsnight Review tonight 12:29pm on 12 Jul 2009 *sigh* So I can't - robustly - express my concerns about what I see as the appalling misuse of science etc. in our justice system because of our almost equally outrageous libel laws? May I suggest that the BBC, in the interests of its public service remit, consider moving its operations to e.g. New York, where I believe they've enacted laws (or are going to) specifically designed to counter the threat to their citizens' right to free speech presented by the despicable UK laws? ;-)
Possible unease over climate model stretching 09:15am on 20 Jun 2009 Electric Universe...? As in Magnoflux tunnels within an electric universe? :D That brings back memories. :) The original website got rated ILLUCID when I submitted it to crank.net http://www.crank.net/em.html after its author posted something about it in the old BBC S&N message boards. That was an age of innocence for me: good science discussions, the weekly moan about Horizon, James Avey's Jules Vernesque patented FTL spaceship and various other mostly entertaining and harmless bits of crackpottery. Few if any of those vile parasitical medical cranks and quacks and their lawyers, IIRC.

Anyway, that's really why I'm nosing around in here this morning - I just came to see if the BBC had noticed yet that there is a war on. Apparently not. ;-)
Newsnight & Newsnight Review: Friday, 20 March, 2009 1:14pm on 21 Mar 2009 Martin Durkin criticising the factual basis of a film about climate change... o_O
Friday, 20 February, 2009 Newsnight & Newsnight Review 08:58am on 21 Feb 2009 Rap is very hard to do well. Shakespeare is very hard to do well. Fusing them is... well, nice try mate.
Autism, abortion and prenatal screening 06:11am on 13 Jan 2009 'Professor Fitzgerald believes that "genes for autism/Asperger's, and creativity are essentially the same".'

Dear me, not here as well (this has turned up in the Guardian Theolo... erm, Science section too ;-). Where is the evidence for this implausible belief? Unless Fitzgerald and Baron-Cohen have such evidence, the argument that screening would deprive us of geniuses such as Dirac is bogus: it is the Beethoven fallacy.

http://www.medicine.tcd.ie/public_health_primary_care/skrabanek/Follies-and-Fallacies-in-Medicine-1up.pdf [p. 44]

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1733465

Of course there would be ethical issues associated with a pre-natal test for autism - that is often the case with screening - but muddying the debate with fallacies is not helpful.
Thursday, 27 November, 2008 05:46am on 28 Nov 2008 Very disappointing 'reporting' today. If you must go beyond the facts, at least let's have some intelligent opinion. Ditch the tired and facile suggestions that the cause of terrorist acts can be blamed on a “failure of intelligence”, the unfounded implications that “India blames Pakistan” and the silly factual inaccuracies (“Bombay, the Indian IT industry centre etc.).

«Newer
Older»

^ Back to top

BBC MMVI

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites

BBC.co.uk

BBC Blog Network

Find and talk to the BBC's bloggers.

User Profile

Magwitch