The morality of DVRs...

Well, if you want to get really technical, we've not had much to say about the actual topic at all. We've discussed legality, we've discussed impact and mitigation of impact, we've discussed technical aspects, but we've barely touched the morality of it.

Morality and legality are two different issues since what is legal is not always what is moral and what is illegal is not always what is immoral. It's even more complex than that since what is legal may be moral for one person but immoral for another or, more commonly in discussions of ethics and morality, breaking a law may be immoral for one person but a moral imperative for another.

IBTL++ Woo Hoo!!!

/thread

If you find yourself splitting hairs between morality and legality, you're probably the kind of person I was talking about. One who is trying to find that line of what's wrong and right so they can live right on top of it. That's a dangerous and confusing way to live.

Actually I think what should be legal is what is moral... the problem is that too many people are dumb and think that morality is some indefinite grey thing that is too hard to pin down or get it from <censored> or abuse the dumbness of people and their inability to understand that what they like and don't like or what is fair or not fair isn't what is moral or immoral. Anything that I can argue for as amoral or moral should be legal. Anything I can say is immoral using sound and valid logic should be illegal. The problem with that is very simple... We simply do not have the range and depth of knowledge for some things.

For example, Is it immoral to distribute content... well the truth is, what i call the moral method (like the scientific method) would ask as simple question... is it harmful? and the answer to that is... I don't know. And that's where all the fuss is... to figure it out we have to look at what morality is (which is the method by which we derive whether social interactions are for the betterment of all involved or not) and when we look at that we have to look at If we can claim there is harm being done (which is a fundamental principal within any morality system) then is that harm to or for some reason that is ultimately good or in some way preventing other from doing harm... so we look at, say, almost all media industry and go is the media industry harmful or helpful? And we would have to say it, at one time, was helpful, but keeping it around is stifling and harming society and thus it's not be immoral that something is destroying that paradigm, but is it? It's not in reality... distributing has been found to raise sales (for the most part) of those who do right by society and produce good work and/or embrace progress...for the most part (some fall through the cracks and some people are just bad so meh) So I have to ask is this moral or immoral and the answer i come up with is that it is moral and to not do it is immoral to a degree as it promotes a system that is damaging society... and as such it should be legal.


For a simpler example... I can't think of a simpler example because i had one, but it quickly turned into political philosophy which is not politics, but people would claim it as such so oh well...


I, like many great people, though most succinctly put by and quoted famously from Aquinas, believe, "An Unjust law is no law at all." In other words. If it is not a law that is moral then it is not a proper law and should not be treated as if it were.

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By that flawed logic you would need to do away with the "mute" button, the remote control, channel changers in general and free will, all of which allow you to avoid commericals to some extent or the other.

And to take it a step further, you'd have to require viewers to purchase the products that are advertised. Someone simply viewing an ad for a product does not put money in the pocket of the advertiser, and that is the ultimate goal of a TV commercial - to sell something, not to subsidize television programming.

So it is "hair splitting" to point out we had not said much about the actual topic. It is "hair splitting' to point out that legal is not the same as moral?

So you believe it was moral prior to the mid-1860s in the US to own another person and is still moral in some parts of the world today? You believe it was immoral to assist those same people if they escaped? You believe it was moral prior to the Civil Rights Act to deny some rights to people who happened not to have white skin? Is it moral to marry a 13 year old like you can in some part of the world?

It's not "hair splitting." It's ethics 101. As for "dangerous and confusing," no, it's not. A person who comprehends that legal is not necessarily moral doesn't have to worry when a law changes about altering their view of morality and, when the government does pass a law that is immoral, they can fight to change it. For example, and on topic, under your stance, if tomorrow a law was passed saying that IP had no legal protections, you'll suddenly have to reverse yourself and be all for "pirating" since it's now legal and, according to you, legal is moral. Someone who believes that pirating is already a moral act like some of the "free art" movements or someone who believes that "content creators" have rights to their work won't have such a switch to make.

Morality is a constantly shifting social convention. Legality is a second social convention that shifts much slower than prevailing morality. Ideally, they will line up and change together. It is very rarely ideal.

More directly to the topic, IP rights are a moral and legal issue. I am one of those "content creators," though not a highly successful one. I have sold about two dozen of my creations in the last twenty years, including one theatrical script and one television script (the former I sold the rights to for $1 and the second was sold for a whopping $500 and never produced) two poems, one short story and a lot of articles. In the 90s, my roommate and I were beaten out by a matter of days on a near identical motion picture script prospectus we submitted that did eventually get made (and we were glad it wasn't ours). My agent is currently shopping a pair of scripts around to any production house that will even think of looking at them and a fiction novel to any publisher that will give him the time of day. I have a small vested interest in the IP issue.

That said, piracy is one of those acts that, even from an industry and business standpoint, rides the line of morality. There are some forms of piracy that just about all media producers would love to encourage, namely try-before-you-buy piracy. It harkens back to recording songs off the radio, movies off HBO and the days of shareware and freeware disks for games and software. Those forms of piracy help the industry since it does boost sales in quantifiable ways. It also forces producers to put out quality products to ensure people will buy after getting a pirated copy (but "quality" is defined as "something people will pay for" rather than something that is classically good).

And then there's the piracy the industry wants to fight. The ones who take a piece of media and do not now nor never will intend to purchase the actual product.

Lastly is the real grey area, piracy that is legal one way and illegal another. That's where the real sticking points come in. If you download an episode of a TV Show from a friend you're pirating. If you record it yourself, you're not. The end result is the same, but the method of attaining the data is different. If you get a copy of a TV show from a friend who is giving you his copy, you're not pirating, but if you get a copy of his show on a disk and THEN he deletes his copy, you are pirating. Again, the end result is the same, but the method is different. If you record a football game and watch it in a bar you own with your wife and 4 kids, you're not pirating, but if you do the same on a night when you're open and have two customers you are pirating.

In the end, it comes down to one simple fact. The industry doesn’t care about my rights as an artist or your rights as a consumer. They care about the impact on their bottom line. if it hurts their bottom line, they call it piracy or stealing. If it's something they can turn to their favor and make money on, they will throw lobbying dollars behind it and get it legalized. Just look at Napster. Same set up as before, but when it went from "costing" to "making" the industry got very quiet about it. VCRs were the same way. When it went from "oh no, this will mean people will record movies and never leave their houses" to "we can use endorsements, product placement and pre-recorded tapes to make cash" VCRs (and later DVRs) became just fine with the TV and movie industry.

Truer words have never been said. This has never been about what is right and what is wrong, it's always been about who has more money and more power. It is The Golden Rule* in action.

I'm afraid though that this thread is drifting toward a debate over whether or not morality is subjective. (Hint: yes it is)

*(Whoever has the gold, makes the rules)