Ultimate Tivo Unit - When? Thoughts please.

I believe "Peter H. Coffin" <hellsop.TakeThisOut@ninehells.com> writes:
> Can't do that -- a lot of definitions of "theft" and "stealing" are
> based on "depriving another of his property without permission". If
> there's no "depriving" happening, then things get really ... funny.

You just have to understand the "property" in this case. The property
being stolen is the right of the creator of said content to control
its distribution and use. By many of the acts being discussed, someone
is depriving the author of control of the resultant works. In any of
those cases, did you ask the author whether they wanted such an act to
be committed? If not, and they did not, you are depriving them of
that control. Now, whether such an act is a crime or not depends upon
the law, because the law determines limits on property rights. But
the existance of such a property right, the right to control the
ditribution and use of one's intellectually created artifact (as
intangible as it may be) is an established principle of law. Thus,
you may deprive the creator of such a work that control and thus be
depriving them of their property.

From that point of view even some of the obvious questions, have
different answers from what is obvious, such as giving your DVD for a
friend to watch by itself is not an issue, but it would be if you had
made a copy of the DVD and retained it to continue watching yourself.
In doing so, you have deprived the author the right to control the
number of people watching the DVD. You may not like that right, but
it is an established property right of the author of the DVD--in fact,
it is essentially the fundamental principle behind intellecutal
property rights, first phrased as something like "as the calf belongs
to the cow, so does the copy belong to its master." Effort or lack of
effort in making the copy is irrelevant.

Perhaps, you refuse the existence of such a right, but if so, you are
devaluing of the people whose work created the programming you are
watching. You are saying, because I can cheaply make a copy of your
work without physically harming you, that the effort you put into that
work is of limited value and I do not care whether you, the author's,
receive full compensation for your work or not.