[RD] Morals of enjoying works made by people who have done bad things

[Zelig]

Yet I just did, and so far you've lost, probably because my statement wasn't actually a tautology. Just for the sake of debate: a yacht and a kayak are different things. They're still both boats. IP and physical property are both different kinds of property.

Yes. You're asking me to prove that yachts are exceptional and that they shouldn't be treated like kayaks.

Your assertion is that IP allows this for non-criminals but does not allow this for criminals. You've yet to back this with coherent reasoning though, which is what I'm asking in the discussion.

See the rest of previous post.

 

[Patine]

"Different x is x" is tautology, it's literally impossible to argue against.



benefits - costs < 0



The benefit of IP is in incentivizing creation. I don't expect the incentive is materially affected by accelerating criminals' IP to the public domain, while the cost goes to zero.

Plus there's some benefit to allowing people to consume the IP of former-criminals with a clean conscience rather than a burden of guilt.

Yes. You're asking me to prove that yachts are exceptional and that they shouldn't be treated like kayaks.



See the rest of previous post.

So, basically, you've now descended into a phoned-in non-debate.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yes. You're asking me to prove that yachts are exceptional and that they shouldn't be treated like kayaks.

We know some well defined properties & valuation that separate yachts from kayaks. You're still not doing this in the actual discussion.

See the rest of previous post.

I saw it. You're not meeting the standard of coherent reasoning...at least what you're typing isn't.

 

[Zelig]

We know some well defined properties & valuation that separate yachts from kayaks. You're still not doing this in the actual discussion.

I've pointed out several well defined properties that separate IP from other property. I'll humour you and repeat/clarify them:

* IP is explicitly structured to be temporary, before irrevocably and permanently passing into the public domain. (i.e. any IP-protected work is going to spend nearly all of its existence in the public domain.)
* The public disproportionately bears the cost of IP. (As compared to the costs of non-IP property holders.)
* The benefits of IP are primarily directly for the public, in the form of the incentivizing creation of additional IP. (Rather than non-IP, where the benefits are for private individuals/companies, benefitting the public indirectly, by creating and supporting a functional legal and justice system.)

I saw it. You're not meeting the standard of coherent reasoning...at least what you're typing isn't.

I can't really explain any further if you just go "incoherent!" without reference to anything in particular.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

* The public disproportionately bears the cost of IP. (As compared to the costs of non-IP property holders.)

I see no evidence to support this - if the IP isn't created, there is no cost. Public can ignore IP after creation, with similar enforcement to regular property.

* The benefits of IP are primarily directly for the public, in the form of the incentivizing creation of additional IP.

This is true for both seizing criminal IP and not seizing it, so I don't see how this makes a difference for whether it should be seized. Also true for points #1 and #2.

I can't really explain any further if you just go "incoherent!" without reference to anything in particular.

The idea is that you need to establish X reasons that logically imply Y conclusion.

Right now, you are giving substantive differences between property categories...but not extending how this logically follows towards justification to seize one form of property in particular. To make this work you must demonstrate that the specific aspects of IP relative to other forms of property in particular justify seizing it when held by those convicted of crimes. However, you've not done this; there's nothing inherent or obvious about crime vs not crime that changes the dynamics "whether IP should exist", even per the reasoning you've provided to this point.

 

[Zelig]

To make this work you must demonstrate that the specific aspects of IP relative to other forms of property in particular justify seizing it when held by those convicted of crimes.

No. Because IP, is at heart, a public good, a justification is required for any application of it, not for any particular lack of it.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

No. Because IP, is at heart, a public good, a justification is required for any application of it, not for any particular lack of it.

"At heart"? No, and when IP is infringed it is an individual or corporation that sues for it.

 

[Ferocitus]

You got me curious with that one. What was appalling about his life?

Infecting casual partners with HIV after being aware of the dangers of unprotected sex with strangers.

Jorge Luis Borges: many brilliant short stories, OTOH screeds of abysmal poetry and
a tendency to glom onto some very dodgy political groups and people.

 

[Patine]

The depths of private opportunism and malice that famous "good" people sank to are often completely lost to history.

This is true of many. But, conversely, Aesop, Shaherazade, and the African-American(s) who used the literary guise of "Uncle Remus" as a vehicle for their stories, were all, as slaves for either the entirety or a good part of their lives, utter victims of the worst sort of opportunism, private and public, and of society. But their stories are quite well known, too.

 

[AmazonQueen]

I was never a particular fan of the Smiths but to what extent should the current political views of Morrisey affect our appeciation of his earlier works?
Should his recent album covering songs that would normally be considered left-wing (protest songs) be considered objectionable. Does he lose the right to sing those songs if his views are out of tune with them. Presumably he doesn't consider his present views to be out of tune with the values expressed in those songs or he wouldn't choose to play them.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertain...nd-to-his-politics/ar-BBUfg9K?ocid=spartandhp

 

[Ferocitus]

I was never a particular fan of the Smiths but to what extent should the current political views of Morrisey affect our appeciation of his earlier works?
Should his recent album covering songs that would normally be considered left-wing (protest songs) be considered objectionable. Does he lose the right to sing those songs if his views are out of tune with them. Presumably he doesn't consider his present views to be out of tune with the values expressed in those songs or he wouldn't choose to play them.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertain...nd-to-his-politics/ar-BBUfg9K?ocid=spartandhp

Great example! I love The Smiths, but I can't stand Morrissey's "Meat is Murder" rants or his asinine views on immigration into the UK.

 

[Kyriakos]

In borges' case, rights to his work are owned by an afaik glaring case of a freeloader. Furthermore he sort of died as a writer in the late 50s, though he kept writing and died in the late 80s.

 

[innonimatu]

Infecting casual partners with HIV after being aware of the dangers of unprotected sex with strangers.

Foucault was a bit of a fool where it came to his private life, that I had taken from his biography (Eribon's, obviously sympathetic).

But he died in 1984. That AIDS was caused by a virus was still very much new at the time, the first paper on the subject is from May 1983. Almost everyone were either ignorant or in denial at the time. Even after the virus hypothesis was confirmed and accepted by the public at large (and that was effectively later than 1984) it would take very many deaths and close bad experiences for that denial to be broken. I'm interested in knowing more about Foucault' case, if you have specific information please PM me.

 

[Ferocitus]

Foucault was a bit of a fool where it came to his private life, that I had taken from his biography (Eribon's, obviously sympathetic).

But he died in 1984. That AIDS was caused by a virus was still very much new at the time, the first paper on the subject is from May 1983. Almost everyone were either ignorant or in denial at the time. Even after the virus hypothesis was confirmed and accepted by the public at large (and that was effectively later than 1984) it would take very many deaths and close bad experiences for that denial to be broken. I'm interested in knowing more about Foucault' case, if you have specific information please PM me.

Sorry, I didn't keep my notes from 30+ years ago.
1. That he spread the infection deliberately is a repulsive accusation that has been around since before he died.
2. However, his own philosophical position, specifically on diseases, their causes and their treatment, and more generally towards the medical profession, had awful consequences for others.
3. IMO it was his arrogant inflexibility to accept that, while he was right to be skeptical, he wasn't qualified to make specific judgement calls about specific diseases that he knew far less about than many medical experts.

 

[innonimatu]

Yes I can see him making that mistake.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

As any recording, short or long, can be used as "just an instrument involved", you are making a distinction without a difference when it comes to the creative process.

Possibly, but it's a distinction with a difference when it comes to the reality of what the things actually are, which is surely more relevant. I mean I could consider the noise of smashing up your car with a baseball bat to be particularly musical, and might want to sample it and use it in my own compositions, so from that point of view it would also be "just an instrument involved". I'm sure you might be able to come up with other considerations that would make it distinct from owning a piano though.

 

[Ferocitus]

Yes I can see him making that mistake.

No, a mistake is something more akin to accidentally clicking on the Nigerian Prince email in your inbox.

IMO, Foucault's behaviour was due to deep-seated, persistent character flaws that had tragic consequences for others. That is why I brought him up as an example for this thread. Some petty mistake that rankles a few readers is of no consequence to me.

Despite his flaws, I really enjoyed many of his books, ideas and his novel approaches to many intersting problems.

Same with Nietszche. A brilliant philosopher tainted by many, persistently stupid remarks and passages about Jews and women. Despite his vituperative passages about the "great men" of his age, he wanted their adulation and respect. Human, all too human.

 

[Hygro]

Possibly, but it's a distinction with a difference when it comes to the reality of what the things actually are, which is surely more relevant. I mean I could consider the noise of smashing up your car with a baseball bat to be particularly musical, and might want to sample it and use it in my own compositions, so from that point of view it would also be "just an instrument involved". I'm sure you might be able to come up with other considerations that would make it distinct from owning a piano though.

Well a piano is a much more reliable tool for music for sure. I agree a baseball bat to a car could make some good sounds in the right context. You want to draw a line at what can be reasonable described as a "performance" versus not a performance. I think there's some reasonable argument for having some kind of rights to your performance but not one that creates a culture of imagining a barrier between works that don't sample recorded sounds and works that do.

Here's some food for thought:

If you write a melody and hire someone for a flat fee to perform it, that performer is not the owner of that performance. This isn't even a contract thing, signing away rights. It's already the default. The writer or creator of the melody, shared equally with the publisher of that melody own, that recorded performance of the melody. Doesn't matter how much soul or flair the instrumentalist brings. The law is clear and somewhat arbitrary.

Now say you're someone else. In fact let's get all the way dirty and say you're the instrumentalist! You're making computer music now and you decide to sample your own performance, chopping your guitar licks, keeping a few notes in the original succession and doing something else with other notes. You've written a new piece that contains the old piece, and "played" from the old recording. While you technically own your new piece you cannot legally publish your remix of your literal-performance because it's someone else's performance, because they wrote it. But you wrote this one, it's a different work, and the sample is from your strumming.

That's the legal framework of all of this. A predefined ownership split 50-50 between the melody & lyrics writers on one half and the publisher on the other, nothing else except some common law tacked on. It is enclosed in very specific laws designed to protect specific people and specifically not others, to protect a certain mode of creativity and not others. The legal line of "performance" is clearly arbitrary. The creative line of "performance" vs "musical source of new material" is definitely not tied to any legal line.

 

[Hrothbern]

Art history tends to be taken by people who need credits in an arts course but lack the interest or ability to get through any other course.

Absolutely not denying what you say

but one of my class mates at primary school had at that moment already decided that he would do art history
He was by far the brightest in our class, he did study art history, he became professor, and I like what he produced on lectures etc.

I always suspected art history as taught as a somehat bogus subject for people who were neither proper artists nor historians.

When I discovered that Britain's leading protagonist of the theory was Anthony Blunt later revealed as a soviet spy, I became convinced.

If you sell art... being a good artist or a good historian will not really help your sales. But a title of art historian does help.

An being a good artist... selling art ?
I think that is a bad combination
Unless selling is your first talent and you got (some) of that other talent on top.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

An being a good artist... selling art ?
I think that is a bad combination

Some people are good at it. I have a large collection of ACEO cards (art cards that are approximately the size of baseball cards) and Scrabble tile art (very small pictures glued to the backs of Scrabble tiles and usually made into jewelry - necklaces, charms for charm bracelets, or lapel pins). Most are cat-themed, as well as landscapes and fantasy.

I have some favorite artists on eBay and Etsy, but one of them recently upped her prices to the point where they're well out of my budget. Now she's lost my business.