"You wouldn't steal a DVD" (Spoilers for blood-pressure raising, morally dubious, anti-copying ads)

[jack]

Many DVDs I see start with an anti-illegal-copying message, which always annoys me each time I see it. As a reminder that illegal copying is (even perhaps prevalent amongst your friends) not just automatically normal, it's reasonable, but it annoys me because:

* It's boring seeing it come up every time

* It's annoying that *I* see it, because I feel (rightly or wrongly) that I don't need it, and feel someone is patronising me by telling me obvious things

* And by using such "dramatic" imagery, it suggests copyright infringement is as bad as Really Serious Physically Immediately Harmful Crime (TM) that adverts against often employ, and it feels like it's trying to tell me I don't have to moral maturity to make those judgements

* It feels like it's saying any more complex analysis of the situation (of which we've seen plenty on these pages) is stupid

* The examples it uses -- stealing a car, a purse are disingenuous. Notice that stealing a car gives the thief much less benefit than the nominal value of the car, and harms the victim much more than the nominal value, what with shock, finding another car, increased premiums, etc. And the same for a purse. But copying someone's DVD harms the DVD's original owner not at all by the act itself [there's certainly indirect harm].[1]

* Choosing that comparison grates on me. It's like having an advert saying "I know you just rented this DVD, but instead of enjoying it, now spend an hour contemplating whether these two acts of theft are morally equivalent"

* The argument, "it's theft" I charitably suppose to mean "and theft is only used to describe wrong things", which as seen above is questionable enough. But it always sounds like "this is wrong because it's against the law". Which is a reasonable guide to action -- drink driving ads have a very effective one-two punch, saying "If you drive drunk, you'll kill someone. And go to jail." But this is definitely admitting you won't get caught, just saying that it's wrong, because it's theft.

I can just imagine a helpful copyright representative barging into the last supper saying he'd heard Jesus had plans to circumvent a legal execution by coming back to life and spreading peace and happiness to all peoples of the world, but sorry, that was wrong, because that's not what the law said.

OK, I think that's everything. When I'm well I promise I'll make less obvious, though not less comedic, rants.

And now for something, actually relevant

[1] That's actually an interesting comparison. There *are* physical-world examples where theft has effectively no immediate impact, but does cut into someone's rightful profit. For instance, if a corner shop makes and sells sweets, and the cost of making the sweets is completely negligible compared to the shop.

Then stealing the sweets is definitely wrong. However, children doing so might be seen more as naughty than bad. Of course, in this case, the costs involved are quite small, so the shopkeeper might well not be losing very much, and not inclined to prosecute.

I can think of other examples, though none particularly apposite or on a comparable scale. I'm not sure if any actually cast any useful light, but it's an interesting perspective.

Comments

[simont]

But copying someone's DVD harms the DVD's original owner not at all by the act itself

True, but it misses the real point. Stealing a car or a handbag is a crime against the person who owns the car or handbag; but making an unauthorised copy of a DVD, if one considers it a crime at all, is a crime against the publisher, not against the person who owns the physical DVD you copied. Of course, by implicitly equating it with crimes which harm individual people, these adverts gloss over that point – presumably deliberately.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Sorry, that's what I meant, the original owner being the owner of the copyright , who is harmed not directly, but indirectly. I'm not writing clearly enough tonight.

In fact, the idea that it's a crime against the person whose DVD you copied -- generally yourself, or a close friend who encouraged you to do so, but even if not -- seemed so obscure it hadn't even occurred to me! :)

[pavanne.livejournal.com]

I don't think indirect harm is morally less reprehensible than direct harm. Neither is harm to a nebulous group of people morally less bad than harm to individual people.

(But I do agree that the anti-copying ads are annoying, hysterical and counter-productive).

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I was writing quickly, it's possible "direct" and "indirect" don't describe what I mean (I don't know if you were misled). The point being that if I deprive someone of X, then they're immediately and directly harmed by a measurable amount. If I illegally copy X, that in itself causes no harm (eg. if I wasn't going to buy it anyway, and don't tell anyone about it, etc), but probably does cause harm indirectly, for instance, in lost revenue from people not buying X. And the harm in both cases is equally wrong, but in the second case the harm more nebulous, it's not clear if every case of copying contributes to the harm to the copyright holder (eg. if there's a threshold below which it doesn't really matter, either in number of copies or fidelity of copies), or if it sometimes might provide a greater overall benefit than harm, etc. (Which doesn't automatically make it ok -- it's wrong to unilaterally infringe someone's rights, even if it might benefit them, but it seems less or at least more questionably wrong to do so.)