Copyright
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With an account, you can revise, criticize, and comment on ideas.Am I committing aggression against JK Rowling if I pirate a PDF copy of Harry Potter?
You’re violating her rights: specifically, her copyright. That’s an aggression.
Okay so without referring to current legislation. I understand that it is currently illegal, just like tax evasion, but that won't go far in persuading me that it isn't right.
Ok let’s rewind the clock and say JK Rowling has finished writing Harry Potter but she hasn’t published it yet.
And she says: I’m going to publish and sell this book on condition that anyone who buys it not distribute it further. They can read it but they can’t redistribute it without my permission.
Those are the terms of publication. It’s a contract. And anyone who buys the book is then bound by the contract.
She would not publish the book otherwise.
She created a value and she wants to trade that value for something specific (money in exchange for reading, not redistributing).
Others are free to take her up on the offer or ignore her.
So it's not me who's pirating the book that is violating her right. It's whoever uploaded it for me to download it, right?
If you’re looking for someone to assuage your guilt over having pirated copyrighted content in the past, you won’t get that from me.
Lol no, I'm trying to understand your point. You're saying that buying a book is a bit like signing an NDA, where I can be held liable for breach of contract if I disclose information. Did I get that right?
Not like signing NDA since you are free to talk about the ideas in the book in your own words, but kinda like breach of contract yeah.
Okay well I have never thought of it in those terms. I definitely think NDAs should be enforceable.
If someone steals a bike and then gifts it to you that doesn’t mean the owner can’t have it back just because you didn’t steal it. Same for copyright.
So then JK Rowling can use violence against me to extort the value that I have supposedly stolen by downloading a book that was uploaded in violation of a contract by a third person?
Not sure that’s extortion but yes, generally speaking, people have the right to use force to prevent and address the arbitrary in social life (#1345).
But I was never party to that contract! I never agreed not to distribute it, and I also didn't actually distribute it. I just downloaded it from Pirate bay.
Duplicate of #1386. Repeating an argument that has outstanding criticisms doesn’t address the criticisms. You can address the criticisms or revise the argument or abandon the argument.
There, the owner is short of a bike. Returning it to him will make him whole. The situation looks quite different in the case of information, at least in my eyes. What exactly is to be returned?
Maybe you could simply pay her the price of the book plus interest plus a fee for the inconvenience. Plus some ‘deterrence fee’ so that most people don’t even think of doing it to begin with.
But I didn't agree to buy the book. I wouldn't have bought it if I hadn't found it on pirate bay, let's say.
You didn’t trade value for value. You traded nothing at all and only received. A free market and justice depend on people interacting as traders, not as leeches (objectivism).
I have received a pattern of information. Information cannot be owned as it is non-scarce. JK Rowling is asking me to give her money for something that was never hers to begin with.
Just returning the bike doesn’t necessarily make him whole. Maybe he lost revenues during the time he couldn’t use his bike.
I wasn't aware that I signed such a contract when buying a book. I think for the contract to be valid I have to be aware of the conditions, no?
Ignorance of the law is not generally a legal defense, afaik.
If it were, any criminal could simply claim he didn’t know what he was doing was illegal. Which would be arbitrary.
Which brings us, again, to the purpose of the law: to prevent and address the arbitrary in social life (#1345).
Your perspective on whether she loses anything really doesn’t matter. That’s the same even for cold hard property. If I exchange your tic tacs for $1,000,000 without your consent, you only win, you didn’t lose, but it’s still theft.