mp3s, warez, divx != stealing

A lot of people tend to believe that downloading things like movies, mp3s, or video games is the same thing as stealing. It isn't.

steal - v. tr. - To take (the property of another) without right or permission.

As the definition implies, there is some sort of transfer of posession. The problem with anything digital, is that you aren't transfering the object at all. When you download a file, whether it be an .mp3, .avi, .rar, it's a copy of the source. On the other hand, if you were to physically take the disc(s) that the data resided on, it would be stealing.

It's easy for us to want to try and equate these things to something that we can understand. The reality is, it's not translatable. The entire digital phenomena is an entirely different paradigm from the symbollism that the rest of the computing world tries to inbue on things.

We have things like files, which really have no relation to what we physically understand as a "file". Is it something you use to remove material from your fingernail? Or is it a document? Digitally, it could be anything.

Then there's the idea of a "desktop" pioneered by Xerox Parq and stolen by Apple. But there is no physical desktop to speak of. Unlike a physical desktop, there is no limit to the amount of "files" you can put on it.

The computing industry has established this set of constructs, symbols, or whatever you want to call it to help us represent the abstraction. This is useful when you try to associate graphics with the abstraction, such as "icons" or "windows". To an extent, this works well.

This is only useful as an abstraction though. When we try to equate things that happen digitally to those that happen in real life, some things, invariably, will not coincide.

This is especially true when referring to internet "piracy"; which is a misnomer. The more accurate term is "copyright infringement".

Every piece of media, whether it be music, literature, software, or motion picture, has a license agreement to it. Even certain websites have end user license aggreements or EULA's. Everytime you install software, it will ask you if you've read the license. This license allows you, the end user, certain rights. You can make personal back ups, you can do what the software is designed to do.

When you buy a CD, you are aloud to make as many personal backups of it as you like. It can be a tape, another CD, mp3s, or any other digital format. Because you own the CD, it is legal under its (the CD's) license agreement. The problem arises that the CD is also the license itself. If you lose the CD, you've lost the license for the CD and the information that was on it. Without the license, all those personal backups that you've made have now become illegal.

This isn't about the different licenses that are associated with different forms of media. Rather, this is about the incongruity of the digital media to its associated physical incarnation.

When you copy an .mp3 or .avi, it's copyright infringement. When you take a CD from a music store (or a friend) without their express permission, it is stealing.

When a friend let's you borrow a CD, that is allowable because you are also transfering the license, however temporarily, to you. If he emails you a copy of his CD, that is copyright infringement.

This is not to say that downloading copyrighted materials is "right", as in: obeying the law, but it definately isn't stealing.

This blog is licensed under a Creative Commons License. This is almost the literary equivalent of the GPL. The reason for this, is because I believe information should be free, as in slaves should be free, not free as in beer. Granted, the information on my blog is not necessarily of any critical importance, that is irrelevant.