Re: Photocopying Book
Originally posted by Dave Marsh
Now, even though I'm sure the ethics police would say that knowingly violating the copyright in this manner would always be wrong, I'd sleep just fine.
Hmm. Let me just pin on my Ethics Police Junior G-Man Badge here (four Captain Crunch box tops, $2.95 for shipping and handling, and four to six weeks of interminable waiting by the mailbox).
Copyright provides legal protection to an author's exclusive right to distribute his works. (In the real works, distribution is almost always handled by a delegate, a publisher or some such, but that individual or company is merely acting with the written permission of the author.) So any act that infringes on the author's exclusive right to distribute is wrong.
(Remember, we're talking ETHICALLY here, not LEGALLY. The two are mostly congruent, but not completely.)
If your friend buys a copy of "Gravity's Rainbow" and you copy it using your handy Xerox machine, you have distributed a copy of the book to yourself. That infringes on the author's exclusive right to distribute the book. So your action is unethical.
If you buy a copy of Gravity's Rainbow and then lose it or something, then copy your friend's copy, that's not really an infringement. You already bought the book. The author already distributed it to you. The fact that you subsequently make a copy of somebody else's book for yourself doesn't change this fact.
Let's speak more specifically. I have a CD, "Reel Life" by Trout Fishing in America. It has a scratch on it. That scratch makes it impossible for any CD player to play the track entitled "Ode to Big Blue." (It's a Gordon Lightfoot cover. Frankly, I like the Trouts' version better than the original.) If I could find a high-bit-rate MP3 of that song on-line, I would probably download it. It would be illegal to do so, but I personally wouldn't have any ethical problem with the act itself, because my intent is to regain access to a song that I can't currently listen to because of a damaged CD.
(I can't find it, and the Music Store doesn't yet sell Trout music, so the whole question is moot. Which makes it a GREAT example.
)
However, there's another question, a larger question. Given that in these two examples (hypothetical and concrete) the act of copying is illegal but not unethical, there is still the ethical question of whether it is okay to do something that is illegal.
Our society is based on universal respect for the law. We have punishments that are intended to deter potential criminals from acting in defiance of the law, but those deterrences alone are insufficient to maintain an orderly, prosperous society. In order for a free society to work, people must obey the law not because they fear punishment, but simply because they respect the law. Without respect for the law, society would disintegrate into an adversarial environment where the people would constantly be trying to find new ways to commit crimes without being caught, and in turn our justice agencies would be forced to extend their powers in order to deal with the concerted efforts of the criminals. It'd be an ever-escalating arms race, and in the long run the net result would either be anarchy, if the criminals succeed in running circles around the police, or totalitarianism, if the police succeed in rounding up all the criminals. Either way, the victim is our free society.
(If you'll notice, this is precisely the present situation between those who wish to steal music and those who wish it not to be stolen. On the one side we have the pirates, and on the other we have the publishers and the white-hat security experts. Each side is constantly trying to surpass the other, and as a result a huge amount of money and time and effort is being wasted.)
So: for the good of society, we must respect the laws. I say that in the most abstract sense; it's not a hard-and-fast thing. Judgments must be made based on circumstances.
For instance, if "Ode to Big Blue" were available on the iTunes Music Store, I would buy it rather than pirating it. I would do so for several reasons, not the least of which is that it would be faster and easier, but neither would the least of which be that I wish to act within the law solely for the sake of the law itself.
On the other hand, I am not rushing out to buy another copy of "Reel Life." I don't have money to burn (who does these days?) and spending $16 to replace a CD that is perfectly fine but for a scratch on one track seems unreasonable to me.
I think the Music Store is a step in the right direction: make it easy, convenient, fast, and cheap for people to acquire music on impulse legally. But I don't think that by itself is going to solve our piracy problem. Part of our problem is cultural. We need to cultivate a culture of respect for intellectual property, and for the law. That's not an especially difficult problem to solve; it just takes time. We went from a country where black people had to sit at the back of the bus to a country where the third highest office in our land is held by a black man in about fifty years. We've still got a ways to go, but we've made astounding progress in about two generations. That's going to be our solution to the piracy problem, too, I think.
Hmm. As I go back and re-read the previous paragraph, I get the feeling that it might be somewhat inflamatory. But I think the point is valid. I think if we look at people who pirate music like people who suffer from race prejudice and educate them rather than either (1) aggressively criminalizing them, or (2) accepting them without challenge or question, then we'll be able to solve the problem of piracy in our lifetime. I hope.
