David.R.Gilson

Thoughts on copyright

Nov 12

Editorial David 1 Comment
academic, copy, copyfight, copyright, information, isohunt, law, newton, pirate, plagiarism, research, science, torrentfreak

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I’ve just finished reading an article over at Torrentfreak.com. The isoHunt Founder Gary Fung wrote a piece about copyright and “CopyFight”. There’s a quote I’d like to share from the end of the post which I think is a really crucial thought to keep in mind. In fact, I’m expressing what he says in this post, by the copy & paste I’m about to perform!

“When the majority of society has no ethical conviction of wrongdoing when they violate copyright law, it’s not society that’s wrong, it’s the law. Because no one can really own ideas. Newton once said, “If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” It’s how the arts and sciences work. We share, we inspire and we remix. For more on Copyfight and where the word came from, go here.“

I learnt about the academic world, before I had a really understanding of why copyright existed. In the academic world, researchers publish (i.e. share) their work with their peers. In every academic paper you will find a references or bibliography section. This is a list of papers from which the author(s) have taken and remixed ideas. As the above quote says, this is how science functions and indeed furthers itself.

We all benefit from sharing, and I haven’t heard of any movie studio, pop star, or author go out of business yet.

In my view, you cannot steal information, you can only plagiarise it.