That's a problem, however, because it presumes an entitlement to content. Maybe there is no way to buy, and that's on purpose. You don't have an inherent right to consume content; that ought to be up to the owner of that content, even if they decide to arbitrarily limit access to their content.
It's up to them, and when you take that decision away from them, you commit an immoral act.
Again, that depends on what you think the purpose of copyright is.
If you consider public domain to be the default, then you do have an inherent right to consume content. The limitations placed on this right are done for a purpose, to promote more creation via sales. And if sales won't happen, then there's no reason for the copyright.
This doesn't account for the fact that someone can hold a copyright (or a physical item) and decide not to sell it at all. After all, they either hold the rights to it or they don't. It's not only theirs if they manage it "well".
It doesn't really account for that, true. But copyright isn't the only control. If you've never distributed something, that generally falls under basic privacy.
But if you've already put 50 thousand copies out into the world, it should stay available in some reasonable form.
Nope, I'm talking about the agreement you consent to when you purchase access to media.
Mass market sales are not a public distribution, just a wide distribution. You must agree to the terms of the sale in order to access the media. You give your word you will not violate those terms, when you purchase it.
Morally speaking, either you believe someone can control their property, or you don't believe that. Sometimes that control involves letting many, but not all, people access that property. If you believe media moves out of someone's control without their consent merely through distribution, then you necessarily do not believe in ownership.
Which is fine, but there is no quasi-ownership concept. Either a person owns and thus controls something, or they do not. Besides, does private property become "public" just because millions of people go there? Does a rental car suddenly become public property once it's passed 100 renters? This concept cannot exist alongside ownership.
> You must agree to the terms of the sale in order to access the media.
Plenty of media doesn't have terms, it just has default copyright. And that's a good thing.
> Morally speaking, either you believe someone can control their property, or you don't believe that. Sometimes that control involves letting many, but not all, people access that property. If you believe media moves out of someone's control without their consent merely through distribution, then you necessarily do not believe in ownership.
Without their consent? Of course not. They have to consent to the distribution.
I believe in limited ownership for ideas.
I'll mention the public domain again, because you haven't addressed that. If you make a movie, eventually it's going to become owned by the public. That's not negotiable.
> Either a person owns and thus controls something, or they do not.
Fair use is also a restriction on the ownership. A big one. So if it's this simple, then "they do not" must be the correct answer for how the world already works.
> go there, rental car
Those are physical items. They don't act like IP. If we apply physical rules to IP, then anyone can copy anything because it doesn't affect the original.
(1) when media has stipulations attached to its distribution that you agree to when you purchase access to the media (specifically the stipulation that you're unable to share the media with others), and
(2) both breaking agreements you've made as well as knowingly benefitting from someone else breaking agreements are immoral,
(C) you must therefore agree that piracy of content with said stipulations (most mainstream content) is immoral!
When 1 and 2 don't apply, C doesn't apply, sure. But when 1 and 2 apply, C also applies.
I believe that any restrictions added on top of copyright, for a normal media sale, are themselves immoral.
And I believe that sometimes copyright goes too far, and that breaking it in those cases is not immoral.
So I definitely don't agree with your first postulation, and I might not agree with the second one depending on how that's interpreted.
In particular, a rule that would stop me from watching a movie with friends should never be enforced or enforceable. So a flat-out "no sharing" is not a moral rule. And a rule that stops me from sharing the movie contents when copyright has lapsed is also immoral. I feel like the average person would solidly agree with me on those two statements.
And then on top of that, I suggest a situation where it would make sense for copyright to lapse without being immoral to the creators. And while under the current legal system it doesn't lapse, that's a legal truth that doesn't dictate the morality of acting like it lapsed.
If you believe that restrictions on use of property is immoral, then you necessarily do not believe in property rights. Either someone can dictate the terms in which other people use that thing, or they do not own that thing.
That's fine, but it's not very compatible with capitalism.
> Fair use is also a restriction on the ownership. A big one. So if it's this simple, then "they do not" must be the correct answer for how the world already works.
Ownership has restrictions, and ownership on ideas has the most restrictions.
Granted, however this doesn't solve your problem with ownership. Either a person can dictate the terms of how something is used (excepting "fair use" or whatever other exceptions apply) or they do not own that thing.
No version of what you've said supplies sufficient exception to remove a person's ability to stipulate conditional use of a thing.
> Granted, however this doesn't solve your problem with ownership. Either a person can dictate the terms of how something is used (excepting "fair use" or whatever other exceptions apply) or they do not own that thing.
Fair use is a whole category. And there's also public domain, eventually.
I could definitely frame my suggestion, for downloading when purchase is unavailable, as a type of fair use or public domain, or something in between.
If it's fair use, does that make it compatible with ownership?
I think it's compatible with ownership.
> No version of what you've said supplies sufficient exception to remove a person's ability to stipulate conditional use of a thing.
Are you familiar with the first sale doctrine? You are largely not allowed to stipulate conditional use of media you are selling.
You get the tools copyright gives you, and that's it.
There's no definition of "fair use" that would allow someone to agree not to share something, then deliberately break that agreement and have their action be moral.
This goes beyond digital/physical goods, and beyond copyright. You give your word as part of the agreement of sale that you won't do something, except you then go and do that very thing. That is not a moral act.
The right to distribute as granted by the first sale doctrine ends, however, once the owner has sold that particular copy. So you can torrent one seed's worth of a copyrighted work, then you must delete your copy.
And it is not a moral act to agree to terms you believe are immoral and then deliberately break them. Two wrongs don't make a right.
First sale doctrine applies to the rights that are automatically transferred when you sell a copy.
We're talking about the rights people get when they buy copies, aren't we? Aren't you implying a situation like someone buying a bluray and uploading it to the internet?
> And it is not a moral act to agree to terms you believe are immoral and then deliberately break them. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Mmmmm, I think it depends on how immoral the terms actually are.
You made the case of "knowingly taking something", that in the knowing that it was "unethically" obtained, there's wrong doing.
However I'd posit that media businesses "knowingly get into the business where it's easy to copy your content". If you don't want your content to be reproduced easily, then don't get into a business where it is virtually costless and harmless to make millions of copies immediately very easily. You're not entitled to put people in jail because you willingly chose to take part of a business that's at the mercy of technology.
To me this is like deciding to open up a grocery and then getting upset at the amount of produce you have to throw away because it goes bad when people don't buy it all, that's just a known factor of the nature of the business. If you don't like it, you're not entitled to shape the world to your liking. Get into blacksmithing or glass working instead.
It's up to them, and when you take that decision away from them, you commit an immoral act.