While it's oh so easy to claim a moral high ground on this there are still things in the market which could be easily offered (ALAC downloads in the iTunes store, for example) but aren't. As such, I use spotify premium for day to day, but if I'm buying music, it's lossless or nothing. I'm not paying the same price for a CD for a worse experience. That is not value.

A small bag of M&Ms costs, I don't know, 79 cents? Why is 79 cents considered reasonable for 29 peanut M&Ms? If I object to that price, and instead pony up the marginal cost of those M&Ms and their packaging (more like 13 cents), am I being reasonable or unreasonable?

That discussion remains distinct from the question of whether any individual person would choose to (openly or secretly) flaunt the existing legal system and take the associated risks; I don't personally want to take those risks, but that doesn't mean I see those choices as wrong, just currently illegal.

To answer the more specific question: since you've already seen all of these arguments play out enough times to become jaded by them, you already know the entire line of arguments differentiating physical property with scarcity from infinitely copyable digital files. In short, taking a bag of M&Ms means the owner of them no longer has it, whereas copying (not taking) a file leaves the original in place.

I mean this playfully. If we were discussing DOM corruption or block cipher modes I would probably have a hard time carefully reading comments that disagreed with my worldview too.

You described the idea of taking a physical item and paying only the manufacturing cost of that item, and I'd assume you intended that to define copying a file as taking it and "paying" the copying cost of 0.

However, those two actions still have a fundamental difference, and not one of price. Assuming a price (zero or otherwise) also assumes a particular entity owed that price; the analogy you made assumes a price inherently owed to the original author of some piece of data, and that copying the file amounted to refusing that price and choosing to pay 0 instead. When I disagreed with that analogy, I didn't intend to imply that the zero cost of copying data provides a justification; rather, I disagreed with the implicit assumption of inherently owing any particular price to the author (zero or otherwise).

To elaborate on that distinction: if I want to copy a chair, I can look at it, perform measurements of it, perhaps perform some materials analysis, and given sufficient skill I can make a copy of it, all without affecting the original. I argue that I have the inherent right to perform that process. That process will almost certainly entail some cost to me: for instance, I'll have to purchase materials to build the copy. However, I don't inherently owe any price to the original designer or builder of the chair, beyond what I might have originally paid them to obtain the original chair. I'd consider the copying of a chair in this manner exactly analogous to the copying of a digital file in all relevant respects. As it turns out, copying digital files requires no particular measurements, materials analysis, or skill, and costs effectively nothing; however, that particular detail doesn't matter for the question we've both asked, namely "does the copier inherently owe anything to the author". And if we build a system to automatically analyze the chair and print a new one on a 3D printer, and can thus copy a chair at minimal expense, that doesn't affect the key question either.

Bringing that back in the direction of copyright, the same thing applies to the copying of a physical book: that process typically involves a non-zero cost, in some combination of time, wear on equipment (copier, scanner, etc), and possibly materials (if copying onto paper), but the conclusion remains the same.

And to go in a different direction: if I hear a song, and later sing it myself, I've copied it (lossily) with my brain and vocal cords, at zero cost to me and zero inherent price owed to the singer or author of the song. We've had infinitely copyable goods long before we had computers.

If you take a bag of M&Ms and pay less than the cost, the proprietor of those M&Ms no longer has them, and cannot then choose to do with them as they see fit; I'll assume from your use of that analogy that you already agree that such an action violates basic expectations of property rights, and that the proprietor of the M&Ms can choose to demand any particular price or none at all. I agree with you completely there: you don't have the inherent right to steal a bag of M&Ms because you find the price not to your liking. However, I hope I've made it sufficiently clear why I don't find that situation analogous to copying a file, or to copying a chair, or a book, or a collection of sound waves.

However, your analogy does actually suggest a rather clear approach to handling trade secrets, or (as brought up by another reply to my comment) private information. If someone chooses not to distribute certain information at all, then taking it from them against their will does not seem reasonable to me. For instance, if someone breaks into my personal system, copies my passwords or encryption keys, and distributes them to the world, I don't consider that reasonable, despite the copying occurring at zero cost; that situation seems quite analogous to the one you described.

That seems like an entirely different situation from the one more commonly addressed by copyright, namely the original author choosing to distribute information and then attempting to control the subsequent distribution of that information by others. I'd argue that the author has every right to choose what to do with the information they have, including not distributing it at all; however, if they choose to distribute that information to others, I'd also argue that those others have every right to choose what to do with the information they have, including distributing it further.

Hopefully I've managed to make it clear that my comment came from a position of careful thought, not from a pattern-matched knee-jerk reaction. :)

About the closest you came to the point I raised was to point out that even if you "square up" with the M&M vendor by paying his cost basis, you've still deprived that vendor of the right to sell their music --- oops, I mean M&Ms --- at the price they determined.

In other words, the closest you came to my point was by agreeing with me.

To further abuse analogies for a moment (note that I used "candy" rather than "M&Ms" to avoid confusing the copying analogy with trademark issues): if I open up a stand across the street from the candy vendor and start giving away free bags of candy, I haven't "deprived the vendor of the right to sell their candy at the price they determined". They have no such right; they have the right to try to sell it. (They might even successfully sell a few bags to people who don't want to cross the street.) Fundamentally, I've done nothing wrong and I owe the candy vendor nothing. I certainly don't owe them the cost basis of a bag of candy, and implying otherwise would make no sense. Even if I created those bags of candy by purchasing a bag from the vendor and analyzing it so I could precisely duplicate it, I still owe the vendor nothing beyond the original price I paid for that one bag of candy. Do you see anything particularly wrong with that analogy? (If you'd like to complain that I've suggested giving away something that costs a non-zero amount to produce, consider that people routinely provide free downloads even though they pay for bandwidth.)

Your answer seems to be that the latter opportunity is "artificial", but here "artificial" seems to be a synonym for "pertaining to copyright". If that's the best you can do, I stand pat on my M&M analogy.

I've argued that an inherent difference exists between copying something and taking the original. Your analogy discusses taking the original, and I've already agreed that taking the original does not seem acceptable; applying that analogy to information produces a useful approach to handling trade secrets and personal/private information.

However, you've provided no reason or rationale to treat copying something the same as taking the original. Your analogy does not cover that case, and your subsequent comments have not addressed it either.

Person A has a piece of data. Person A lets person B copy that data. What gives person C any particular right to complain?

Person A has a chair. Person A lets person B construct a copy of that chair. What gives person C any particular right to complain?

I view this as simple rent-seeking.

(The rest of this comment just responds to your specific complaint about "artificial", which seems like a side-track. The point above represents the fundamental point of my series of comments.)

> Your answer seems to be that the latter opportunity is "artificial", but here "artificial" seems to be a synonym for "pertaining to copyright". If that's the best you can do, I stand pat on my M&M analogy.

I've made the assumption here that you don't mind having a discussion about rights that does not assume the current state of law as having any particularly inherent claim to optimality. I don't want to privilege the hypothesis; I want to determine the optimal approach. Assuming the current state of law puts the burden of proof on anyone arguing to change it. Starting from nothing and arguing about what laws should exist puts the burden of proof on anyone wishing to construct a right where none inherently exists. Hence my use of the word "artificial": I don't intend it as a synonym for "pertaining to copyright"; I intended it as a label for a "right" that would have no particular reason to exist without the explicit construction of laws to enforce it.

I've also made the assumption here, based on your original analogy, that you already agree with the notion of property rights over physical property; I agree with that as well, so I've simply taken that as a given without exploring that issue further. I hope you agree that we don't need to explore that. You can either think of such rights as inherent, or think of them as artificial and assume that we agree on sufficient justification for them to exist. Either way works for the purposes of this discussion. I've stated this assumption explicitly to stave off any complaint you might have in response to my previous paragraph that "property rights are artificial too by that definition".

You also seem to believe that property rights extend to information, which I don't agree with, so that point I've explored quite extensively. I don't consider those rights inherent; I consider them artificial, and I don't believe they have sufficient justification to exist.

I refuse to assume the burden of proof here. You argue for copyright law, so you cannot assume copyright law when making your argument. Please actually argue for it. :)

If you actually think through the scenario I presented, you'll see it's more equivalent to copying than you're crediting. The M&M "cheat" is recouping the M&M owner for their cost of goods sold. The M&M owner is no worse off, because the owner can simply buy another bag of M&Ms and wait for the next "sucker" to come along and pay retail.

This is obviously an absurdity. The person who takes a bag of M&Ms, coughs up the wholesale price, and walks out with the product is obviously guilty of a crime: shoplifting. Everyone agrees with this. But the economic impact to the shopkeeper is the same.

Why do you accept one and not the other?

Please don't write another 20 paragraphs about "rent seeking" and "copying" and plans for chairs. By your own definition, the shopkeeper is "rent seeking" when he charges more than his cost basis for the M&Ms.

You put a lot of effort into writing, obviously. Put a little more effort into thinking. When someone is caught shoplifting, do we have them pay the wholesale price of the item they stole as damages to make the retailer whole? Of course not. If we did that, there would be no disincentive whatsoever to steal; if you win, you get the item free, if you lose, you get a discount. But you're applying that same logic to unlawful downloads. And, lo and behold, there is apparently no incentive whatsoever for anyone to compensate artists.

I haven't attempted to argue whether the original author (note my not accepting the term "owner") will be worse off from the copying. I haven't fixated on that point at all; it never once entered into my reasoning. The original author is a third party to the transaction of copying; they have no standing to object. Party A has data; party A lets party B copy that data. Neither party is the original author, so the original author has no standing in the transaction.

Please do not assume that people who disagree with you must not have put enough thought into it. I have put a great deal of thought into my position on copyright, and I came to a different conclusion than you did. Your analogy provides no new information to lead to any different conclusion. I do not appreciate you dismissively lumping my arguments in with "every nerd ever" and assuming I have not put my own thought into the issue.

> By your own definition, the shopkeeper is "rent seeking" when he charges more than his cost basis for the M&Ms.

No, my own definition had absolutely nothing to do with the cost basis for M&Ms or any other physical product. Please don't attack a strawman. I defined rent-seeking the same way economists do, namely attempting to extract economic rent from a third-party transaction:

'Rent, by contrast with these two, is obtained when a third party deprives one party of access to otherwise accessible transaction opportunities, making nominally "consensual" transactions a rent-collection opportunity for the third party.' -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

That seems to describe copyright quite accurately, doesn't it?

We both obviously agree on about property rights over physical property. Thus, we both obviously agree that the owner of a bag of M&Ms has the right to charge whatever price they see fit, and nobody has the right to take that bag of M&Ms on terms the owner does not approve of. You keep bringing up your analogy, bringing up the obvious absurdity it implies about property, and then trying to jump from there to a conclusion about copying. We fundamentally disagree over whether an author has the right to control the copying of data. To accept your analogy as having any meaning in the context of copying data, I would have to accept the concept of copyright as a property right the author has over the copying of their data. Circular reasoning at its finest, disguised by way of an appealing-sounding analogy.

> Why do you accept one and not the other?

Why do you assume one implies the other? I have no particular reason to think of data as property, so I don't. Why should I believe otherwise?

We get to because technology provides it. It's not about reasonableness, but ability and convenience. Is business and commerce suddenly subject to morality?

Or, like most nerds, are you comfortable with "might makes right" as long as you're the one with the might, and something you perceive as a giant faceless corporation is what the might is directed at?

Itunes (or Amazon) downloading is convenient because I can download almost _any song I can conceive of_ in 30 seconds.

I've tried purchasing HBO at least four times over the last 3+ years on "Special" deals here in Redwood City - Each time, my absolute minimum monthly cost has been $85 (Digital Cable + Special HBO Offer) - and also required additional installation and hardware costs on the order of $200 or so.

I agree - that there is a grey line - but, for me, "30 seconds and $1.29 for a song" is reasonable, but "$1020 and $200 worth of hardware and wait 2 weeks for installation" is unreasonable.

It's subjective - but I feel music downloaders don't have much in the way of excuses, but those people torrenting GoT, especially if they _always_ purchase it on DVD when it's available, at least have a defensible moral (if not legal) position.

I think attribution rights probably are. The grant and transfer of long term distribution rights is less clear.

"HBO.com is optimized for the most recent browsers and requires Flash and a broadband connection. Specifically, HBO.com supports Internet Explorer 6+, Firefox 2+ and Safari 2.03+ HBO.com requires the free Flash plug-in, version 9.0124 or greater."

Assuming they don't explicitly block Chrome, either that or FireFox should work fine on Linux.

Because of this flat fee anything below around 99 cents quickly becomes unprofitable to sell. It's why companies that do microtransactions do so with other payment methods, like alternative currency (FB credits, etc).

Of course, you can also use service such as Spotify if actually having the files themselves isn't important to you (I'm more than happy to pay £5 per month to Spotify for what's actually a quite impressive library). For large consumers of music that can be quite attractively priced.

Not something in reach for indies, but Dwolla is changing that.

Side note: Spotify is horrible for musicians.

Is it reasonable to expect a 20 year old intern to have these 11000 songs? Does her life depend on it? What about other things which are unreasonable expensive for a 20 year old intern? The laptop to store the music on, external hard drive, smartphone with data plan to download and so on ... ?

This one has some background on numbers. And myths about royalties: http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/letter-to-emi...

He starts off by saying "I’m gonna give you a break" and then ignores the record company's cut, which is about 80%. And then proceeds to use this drastically reduced value to lay a guilt trip.

It doesn't work that way, the record company isn't going to cut her a break, it's going to charge her the full 99c. Which means instead of $17.82 a month, she would need to pay $89.10 a month, for 10 years between the ages of 10 and 20.

This girl is a thief, plain and simple. It's like walking into a Starbucks and just stealing coffee. The marginal cost of a cup of coffee is just pennies, however there are fixed costs involved. If you don't like Starbucks or think they're corrupt or whatever, no one is forcing you to consume their product. If you don't like Universal Records, then don't support their product.

Musicians must buy equipment and play, usually for years making next to nothing, playing in ratty bars for shitty owners and when they finally do get an album released, they certainly deserve to get paid -- the record companies deserve to get paid as well. For every hit song, they've blown countless dollars supporting musicians that never accomplish anything.

This anti-corporate argument is the argument of a cheapskate thief. There are plenty of Indie labels on iTunes that operate on shoestrings, yet people steal their music too.

And it's very likely that she doesn't listen to all those songs. She does want to work in the music industry though, so I can kinda see how she might want to sample a wide variety of songs. She should probably have used streaming services instead I guess.

That's subjective, if it were really the case we wouldn't be talking about it now.