Can Yall sign this Petition against SOPA and PIPA

[Babalonian]

See Rule #14

[Vulcan]

It is theft.

It is not theft. It may be copyright infringement (note there are legitimate uses for images in other material where copyright may not apply, such as satire).

Copyright infringement has never been nor ever will be theft or stealing. It is purely copyright infringement. If you pick up a DVD in walmart and walk out without paying... that is theft.

[mthrockmor]

Really good discussion.

For me the question is that of enforcement. These bills gave incredible power to the Attorney General's office/Justice Department that currently resides within the judiciary.

We are beginning to see both ideological sides of the spectrum distrust the judiciary and seeking superjudicial means to resolution. Bad ideas in my opinion but where they are going.

Boo

[PFactorDave]

It is not theft. It may be copyright infringement (note there are legitimate uses for images in other material where copyright may not apply, such as satire).

Copyright infringement has never been nor ever will be theft or stealing. It is purely copyright infringement.

You know what, you're right from a purely legal point of view.  It is not considered theft legally  (I have retracted the text in red, see below.  Copyright infringement is in fact considered theft in the eyes of the Federal Government, even when there was no monetary gain or expectation of gain.  There are severe penalties and instances of Copyright infringement can be investigated by the FBI.), because the government does not (yet) arrest people for copyright infringement and put them in jail  (But they do!  So I retract this also!  In fact, it is believed that criminal prosecutions for copyright infringement are on the rise and are expected to increase greatly in the relatively near future.)  It is a civil matter, at this time that if the infringement can be proven willful, becomes criminal (theft).  

But in practice, I personally don't understand how downloading copyrighted music (for instance) without paying for it is any different then walking into a music store and shoplifting the same music.

I believe it is more a case of the law hasn't quite caught up with the digital age.   But it will.

Furthermore, it is parody that can be covered by "fair use", not satire.  Unless the satire also has elements of parody, which of course would be argued in the court.  There is a relatively interesting discussion of it here...

http://apps.americanbar.org/litigation/committees/intellectual/roundtables/0506_outline.pdf

So, for my purposes as a professional photographer, use of my images for pretty much anything beyond an actual parody of my work would not be covered by fair use.  Thus, copyright infringement.  If deemed to be willful copyright infringement, it could be prosecuted in a Federal Criminal Court.


EDIT to add

Title 17 of the United States Code does make provisions for Criminal copyright infringement in certain circumstances...

This Title 17 Copyright law can be found here...  http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html


EDIT TO ADD MORE

Furthermore, the federal No Electronic Theft Act (NET Act) of 1997 expanded the criminal portion of copyright law to include willful infringements even when the infringer had NO gain or expected gain from the infringement.

Would like to point out the word THEFT in the name of the Act.  So, it seems that willful copyright infringement is THEFT in the eyes of the Federal Government.  I retract my retraction and reaffirm my opinion that copyright infringement, when proven to be willful, is in fact theft in the eyes of the law.  A person convicted in a Federal Criminal Court of Criminal Copyright Infringement can receive a penalty of up to 5 years in prison and $250,000 fine per infringement.  Then of course, the injured party would be able to seek a civil judgement for their losses and damages as well.  

You can find the wiki on the NET Act of 1997 here...   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NET_Act

[Dichotomy]

In case anybody is as completely bored as I am and wants to read the bill you can do so here

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204555904577167040770940440.html

[VonMessa]

You know what, you're right from a purely legal point of view.  It is not considered theft legally  (I have retracted the text in red, see below.  Copyright infringement is in fact considered theft in the eyes of the Federal Government, even when there was no monetary gain or expectation of gain.  There are severe penalties and instances of Copyright infringement can be investigated by the FBI.), because the government does not (yet) arrest people for copyright infringement and put them in jail  (But they do!  So I retract this also!  In fact, it is believed that criminal prosecutions for copyright infringement are on the rise and are expected to increase greatly in the relatively near future.)  It is a civil matter, at this time that if the infringement can be proven willful, becomes criminal (theft).  

But in practice, I personally don't understand how downloading copyrighted music (for instance) without paying for it is any different then walking into a music store and shoplifting the same music.

I believe it is more a case of the law hasn't quite caught up with the digital age.   But it will.

Actually it is parody that can be covered by "fair use", not satire.  Unless the satire also has elements of parody, which of course would be argued in the court.  There is a relatively interesting discussion of it here...

http://apps.americanbar.org/litigation/committees/intellectual/roundtables/0506_outline.pdf

So, for my purposes as a professional photographer, use of my images for pretty much anything beyond an actual parody of my work would not be covered by fair use.


EDIT to add

Title 17 of the United States Code does make provisions for Criminal copyright infringement in certain circumstances...

This Title 17 Copyright law can be found here...  http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html


EDIT TO ADD MORE

Furthermore, the federal No Electronic Theft Act (NET Act) of 1997 expanded the criminal portion of copyright law to include willful infringements even when the infringer had NO gain or expected gain from the infringement.

Would like to point out the word THEFT in the name of the Act.  So, it seems that willful copyright infringement is THEFT in the eyes of the Federal Government.  I retract my retraction and reaffirm my opinion that copyright infringement, when proven to be willful, is in fact theft in the eyes of the law.  A person convicted in a Federal Criminal Court of Criminal Copyright Infringement can receive a penalty of up to 5 years in prison and $250,000 fine per infringement.  Then of course, the injured party would be able to seek a civil judgement for their losses and damages as well.  

You can find the wiki on the NET Act of 1997 here...   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NET_Act

Well....

Today, you can  

[PFactorDave]

Today, you can  

Thank goodness I didn't need it yesterday!  

I linked to the wiki because it is quite a bit easier to read then the actual NET Act of 1997, since the NET Act is mostly about adding to and altering the language of the previous law.  It takes a lot of switching back and forth between documents to really get a good feel for what it is designed to do.  Which is to provide criminal penalties, even to pimply teenagers who think that the "interwebz" makes it ok to willfully take somebody elses intellectual property without paying for it.

[Motherland]

But in practice, I personally don't understand how downloading copyrighted music (for instance) without paying for it is any different then walking into a music store and shoplifting the same music.

Because if you go into a music store and steal a CD, you've taken a chunk of plastic and paper that, for each individual instance of its existence, required that materials be procured and worked into a physical entity. A CD is not a piece of intellectual property, it's a physical thing- something that the record store payed for, that the label payed to have manufactured, and that the factory payed for the materials for. If it's stolen it's not still there. It's gone. Whereas if you make a copy of something, it's still there- you just got it for free, but whoever had it previously still has it.
That's why piracy isn't theft- it's piracy. Whether or not it's moral, and how more or less moral it is than theft can be argued ad nauseum, but it still remains that it is not theft.


It's also something that's here and will not go away, since as soon as any legislation passes people will start figuring out ways to worm around it, and it'll be good as if it hadn't been passed in the first place in 6 months. The industries that are most affected by this, particularly the music and film industries, are just going to have to redefine themselves.

[PFactorDave]

Because if you go into a music store and steal a CD, you've taken a chunk of plastic and paper that, for each individual instance of its existence, required that materials be procured and worked into a physical entity. A CD is not a piece of intellectual property, it's a physical thing- something that the record store payed for, that the label payed to have manufactured, and that the factory payed for the materials for. If it's stolen it's not still there. It's gone. Whereas if you make a copy of something, it's still there- you just got it for free, but whoever had it previously still has it.
That's why piracy isn't theft- it's piracy. Whether or not it's moral, and how more or less moral it is than theft can be argued ad nauseum, but it still remains that it is not theft.
(Image removed from quote.)

It's also something that's here and will not go away, since as soon as any legislation passes people will start figuring out ways to worm around it, and it'll be good as if it hadn't been passed in the first place in 6 months. The industries that are most affected by this, particularly the music and film industries, are just going to have to redefine themselves.

Well the No Electronic Theft Act of 1997 seems to equate copyright infringement of digital material with theft.  

It strikes me that through the use of semantics, there is a group of people who are trying to make copyright infringement more acceptable by insisting that it isn't theft because no physical item has been taken.  Well, even if I agree that it should be called piracy rather then theft, piracy is also a criminal act that can be punished with prison and/or large fines.  

At the very least, it IS considered Electronic Theft by the Federal Government.

My personal opinion is that if we are going to insist upon calling it piracy rather then theft, we should re-adopt the traditional penalty for piracy.  Which, I believe, is hanging by the neck until dead...  Ye olde hempen jig!  Then for the most infamous of perpetrators, their body left in an iron cage to rot away over the course of as long as two years.

By the way, did you create that picture yourself or pirate it from some other web site?  Was there a written release into the Public Domain with it?

[2bighorn]

Would like to point out the word THEFT in the name of the Act.  So, it seems that willful copyright infringement is THEFT in the eyes of the Federal Government.  I retract my retraction and reaffirm my opinion that copyright infringement, when proven to be willful, is in fact theft in the eyes of the law.  A person convicted in a Federal Criminal Court of Criminal Copyright Infringement can receive a penalty of up to 5 years in prison and $250,000 fine per infringement.  Then of course, the injured party would be able to seek a civil judgement for their losses and damages as well.  

You can find the wiki on the NET Act of 1997 here...   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NET_Act

It's not theft. While officially the act can be cited by its short name containing word theft, the official full title is:
"An act to amend the provisions of titles 17 and 18, United States Code, to provide greater copyright protection by amending criminal copyright infringement provisions, and for other purposes."

    (a) CRIMINAL INFRINGEMENT.— Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either—

            ``(1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or

            ``(2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000,

        ``shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, United States Code. For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement.´´.

[Motherland]

Well the No Electronic Theft Act of 1997 seems to equate copyright infringement of digital material with theft. 

It strikes me that through the use of semantics, there is a group of people who are trying to make copyright infringement more acceptable by insisting that it isn't theft because no physical item has been taken.  Well, even if I agree that it should be called piracy rather then theft, piracy is also a criminal act that can be punished with prison and/or large fines. 

At the very least, it IS considered Electronic Theft by the Federal Government.

My personal opinion is that if we are going to insist upon calling it piracy rather then theft, we should re-adopt the traditional penalty for piracy.  Which, I believe, is hanging by the neck until dead...  Ye olde hempen jig!  Then for the most infamous of perpetrators, their body left in an iron cage to rot away over the course of as long as two years.

By the way, did you create that picture yourself or pirate it from some other web site?  Was there a written release into the Public Domain with it?

You now have a copy of the image in your browsing cache, have you now pirated it?

I didn't save the image and rehost it, either. I just hotlinked whatever site I found it hosted on. Should that entail piracy? Is there anyone in Congress who has any idea what hotlinking is? Probably not.
Due to the nature of digital images 'pirating' them beyond actually using them commercially is so intensely grey that it's probably impossible to garner any color from it.

[PFactorDave]

It's not theft. While officially the act can be cited by its short name containing word theft, the official full title is:
"An act to amend the provisions of titles 17 and 18, United States Code, to provide greater copyright protection by amending criminal copyright infringement provisions, and for other purposes."

    (a) CRIMINAL INFRINGEMENT.— Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either—

            ``(1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or

            ``(2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000,

        ``shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, United States Code. For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement.´´.

Curious why you bolded the "evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement"?  It isn't key to the discussion of copyright infringement being theft or not.  

Photographers, such as myself, use professional photographic papers which have a copyright warning all over the back of the prints.  Most photofinishers rigorously respect our copyrights.  There are several professional photographer associations that have fought and won some pretty large suits against photolabs.  The smart ones won't even think about copying our prints for one of their customers.

We use Copyright Warnings on our web sites.  The phrase, "Unauthorized reproduction strictly prohibited by law" appears all over my web site.  

We layer as many warnings in as many places as possible, including copyright marks and overlays etc. We make it pretty darn hard to miss that the copyrights belong to us.  To get around them and have an image that is usable for much of anything, it takes a pretty determined and willful act.  We do everything possible to let everyone know that making a copy of our work is a violation of the law.  Proceeding to do it anyway crosses the threshold of being a willful act.


On a side note, I find it interesting how this is one of those areas of the law that ignorance of the law is in fact an excuse.  I expect that there will be a lot of changes coming to copyright law over the next decade.  

[2bighorn]

So, for my purposes as a professional photographer, use of my images for pretty much anything beyond an actual parody of my work would not be covered by fair use.  Thus, copyright infringement.  If deemed to be willful copyright infringement, it could be prosecuted in a Federal Criminal Court.

As a professional photographer, you probably have a website with some of your 'copyrighted' images on display.

If I visit your website, viewing your images, am I stealing? According to you, I do.

If I embed image from your website, ie wrap the image URL between the URL tags here in the forum, am I infringing your copyrights?

If, lets say somebody living in Iran, copies your images to his/her hard drive, would you suffer any monetary damages?

[Motherland]

Of course, does SOPA or PIPA really have any bearing on the 'piracy' of photography? I'm pretty unaware of megaupload, mediafire, Pirate Bay, etc. being involved in the mass distribution of pirated photography, or of anyone that pirates photography for home use. One of the problems with using photography as an example here is how fundamentally different it is from music, film, and software.

[2bighorn]

Of course, does SOPA or PIPA really have any bearing on the 'piracy' of photography? I'm pretty unaware of megaupload, mediafire, Pirate Bay, etc. being involved in the mass distribution of pirated photographyor of anyone that pirates photography for home use

Porn pics?

One of the problems with using photography as an example here is how fundamentally different it is from music, film, and software.

No difference really.