The ethics of copying authors’ stuff online

It’s too easy these days to duplicate online material created by somebody else – and which is their intellectual property.

“Someone whispered to someone else who had a grudge over that issue of your splashing mud on their boots that you were a witch, therefore you are guilty without defence and will burn.”

Corporates have responded by lobbying western governments into making copying a crime that, certainly under New Zealand law, works on a ‘guilt by accusation’ basis, breaking one of the key precepts of western justice in the process. Cases so far brought before the New Zealand Copyright Tribunal have all reflected music copying. Some have been fair cop. But the concern from the ethical viewpoint is that there have been repeated instances where innocent parties were brought before the Tribunal, including a soldier who was in Afghanistan on combat duties when the alleged infringements occurred, back in New Zealand. As another case report shows, if you are wrongly accused, you cannot prove your innocence. It is this situation that is the concern from the ethical viewpoint. We are back, in short, to the moral compass of the Salem witch trials.

Authors’ online material doesn’t seem to get copied in quite the same way. But it raises a slightly different issue, because in this age of self-publishing, authors often post their own material for sale – and copying it without buying is, in effect, stealing directly and personally from them.

I took this picture of the spines of some of my books. It’s been duplicated by others across the internet, but the copyright is still mine.

Sometimes the author’s stuff is provided free, but even then I find there are misconceptions about the way that works. In my own case, the stuff I post on this blog is provided gratis for people to read and enjoy, providing it is not plagiarised or somebody copies it without crediting me – see the license terms down at the bottom right. I post photos I’ve taken with copyright notice. Some of those images earn income for me elsewhere.

What I am NOT giving away is copyright. Or the right to be associated with my intellectual work. I’ve had my published work occasionally infringed, but so far, my online stuff hasn’t been – shall we say ‘re-purposed’ – by others. It’s been copied, re-pinned, re-blogged and so forth, but politely with credit according to the stated terms.

What I have discovered is that some people who copy stuff have no idea what ‘copyright’ actually means. I often see disclaimers such as ‘No infringement intended, copyright remains with the owners’. Recently, someone pinched 38 of my commercial photos in one go and republished them without asking. I issued a take-down notice. They complied, but told me ‘I just copied them, I didn’t take your copyrights’. Actually, copyright gives the holder of that right power to act when the material is infringed. The infringement is the act of copying without permission (license). So by duplicating and re-posting without license, you’ve infringed.

I’ve also seen occasional infantile ‘holier than thou’ remarks like: ‘I will only accept your criticism for my copying, if you can claim you have never done it yourself’.

I assume the people doing this are twelve year olds who haven’t yet learned another fundamental precept of western society in which it is assumed people can learn from past mistakes, accept they were wrong – and reform. It’s how the western justice system works – and if we lose that principle, as a society, we’re doomed. Is this really where the ‘me’ generation wants to take us?

Have you had problems with your material being infringed? What have you done about it? Or been able to do about it?

Copyright © Matthew Wright 2014