Content theft on Second Life is something everyone except the people ripping off stores is surely against, and the point of this post isn’t to defend those who make their lindens by selling copies of other people’s work without permission, but to make another point entirely:
It’s not theft.
Theft is a legal term. To be theft – a crime – it must deprive the original owner of use of the stolen item. Copying it does not do this.
Downloading pirated music, copying something without permission on Second Life, neither of them are theft. Neither of them are criminal offenses (though redistribution on a large scale may be). They are breach of copyright, which is in most cases a civil offense.
Why does this matter, and why does it bug me so much every time I read people talking about “content theft” on Second Life?
Every time I watch a DVD that begins with one of those “piracy is theft” trailers, I want to scream and smash the screen. No, it’s not. Even the screens that come up before a film in the cinema warning us of the dire consequences if we should do a bootleg recording of the movie are lies. The movie and music recording industry want us to equate breach of copyright with theft. We should resist this insidious notion. Because it’s just not the same thing at all.
I am not saying it’s okay. I am absolutely not defending anyone who rips off creators on Second Life – I’m just saying we should call it what it is. Infringement of copyright – the right to copy and distribute a work.
We need to get away from this idea of equating intellectual property and ideas with physical property. Copyright is a right granted to creators, at the expense some would say of the public; in the US constitution it’s specified that the purpose of copyright is to encourage innovation and creation (in the arts and sciences) by guaranteeing that creators can make some money from their creations. Second Life content creators are perfectly justified in going after people who infringe their copyright and profit from their hard work – it’s just not theft.
A couple of articles on the topic:
– Legal blooger Jack of Kent on why Copyright Infringement Is NOT Theft
– Editor Russell McOrmond also says Copyright Infringement Does Not Equal Theft
– See also Copying is Theft – and other legal myths.
– And Second Life resident Emily Orr explains how Linden Lab’s new solution to copyright infringing materials on SL screws over the innocent user.
And to quote a case from US law, here’s Dowling v. US:
The infringer invades a statutorily defined province guaranteed to the copyright holder alone. But he does not assume physical control over the copyright; nor does he wholly deprive its owner of its use.
Dowling v. US specfically rejects the concept that infringement of copyright is in any legal sense the same as theft.
There’s another aspect to “property” when it comes to Second Life, which illustrates how different it is to physical property, and that involves permissions. An item can be set not to be copied but to allow transfer between owners, mirroring real life, but it can also be set not to be transferrable. This means that if I buy an expensive item, and later want to replace it with a newer, better model, I can’t sell my old item second-hand.
If I buy a car in real life, I know that if I want a better, newer one in a few years, I can sell this one to help pay for it. If I buy a horse on Second Life, and a few years later find a better horse, I can’t necessarily sell my old horse to help cover the cost. I cannot treat my SL property like real property. Similarly, if I buy clothes IRL I can chop them up, restitch them, and generally do whatever the heck I want with them. RL content producers don’t have any rights to set things no modify, no transfer!
Finally, and along similar lines, in real life wherever I go, I can take my belongings with me. I think there’s a legitimate use for things like Copybot for those who want to take their avatars and SL inventories to other grids. This does not mean they should be able to sell infringing copies of what they’ve copied over, but as the person who bought the items, they should be able to use them.
Read Full Post »