johaneriksson.se

While browsing the internet I happened upon this rather interesting article, over at GameSpot. It is about so called abandonware, which Wikipedia defines like this:

Abandonware refers to computer software that is no longer sold or supported, or whose ownership may be unclear for various reasons. While the term has been applied largely to older games, other classes of software are sometimes described as such. Definitions of “abandoned” vary; generally, it refers to software no longer available for legitimate purchase or of a certain age. Software companies may change their names, go bankrupt, enter into mergers, or cease to exist for a variety of reasons. When this happens, product rights are usually transferred to another company that might not sell or support the software acquired.

In the GameSpot article both abandonware enthusiasts, game publishers and the people making games, discuss the phenomenon and offer up their views.

I haven’t written much about copyrights and piracy, and I find it to be a rather difficult subject. There are many interesting arguments out there, and given the attention it’s getting from lawmakers in many countries, it’s a rather urgent matter.

My view, which is by no means very solid, is somewhere in between the “file-sharing is theft” and “information should be free” crowds, although perhaps closer to the former. First of all, to get anywhere I believe it is necessary to separate two different issues. There is a moral aspect and a legal aspect, and confusing them, or failing to make the distinction, makes the whole thing very confusing.

As far as morals go, to me it seems rather clear. Spreading and downloading copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holders, is essentially immoral. The reason is fairly simple. Anyone who creates something, in this case information, should automatically own the right to decide how, and on what terms, other people can use the artifact created. This has nothing to do with whether the creator could earn money on it. The opposite view, that information once created belongs to everyone, is highly problematic.

When it comes to what the law should look like, things are more blurry. Naïvely one would think that the law should always follow what is moral, but upon consideration this would be making things too simple. Lawmakers also need to consider practical issues, like how the law would be enforced, and side effects of the law. This is where the “piracy-is-theft” people go wrong, in my opinion.

One of the issues with the current, strict, laws is that millions of people do not follow them. This creates at least a couple of problems. One, which I will not go into, is whether democracies should have laws that a large proportion of their citizens (perhaps even a majority) do not follow. Another is that the chance of getting caught is so small, that it’s essentially just bad luck. To ensure that the law still has a deterring effect, the penalties for breaking it has to be draconian. This removes any proportionality between crime and punishment, which is highly problematic. Also any civilised legal system should avoid making examples out of people.

Another problem is that better enforcement appears to require — and certainly leads to — that law enforcement agencies monitor what people do on their computers. This brings us back to the security-privacy debate, where we are already leaning too far towards security.

There are probably other problems as well.

I have no idea what the answer is. My feeling is that it might be better for lawmakers to allow immoral behaviour in this instance, at least to some extent. A solution where copyrights expire after a certain time period, perhaps varying the length of the period depending on the type of media, might be a way to go.

—-

Andra intressanta bloggar om: politik, upphovsrätt
Technorati Tags: politics, copyright