In rhetoric, there’s an old trick — begin with a true statement, and then follow with an argument that does not naturally follow from the true statement. When challenged, ignore the criticism of the argument and instead defend the true statement.

Here’s an example. True statement — “We’ll always have copyright infringement. You can never completely eradicate it.” False following argument — “Copyright owners should accept infringement as a reality and pursue other paths for compensation.”

This was the conjecture recently behind the argument of someone who advocates reduced rights for copyright owners. (She calls it “more balance” with copyright, again a rhetorical device where you manipulate language; by definition, balance is in fact a balance, if you add more to one side of the scale you create imbalance, which she would in fact prefer.)

This reduced-rights advocate on this Monday FCBA panel I was on said copyright owners should focus on enforcing their rights with physical works such as CDs and DVDs, but ignore infringement online. When several of us noted that online infringement causes economic harm (despite the challenge in measuring it precisely) and is in fact supplanting physical piracy in developed countries — why head to a bad part of town and pay for an inferior counterfeit good, assuming it’s even available, when high-quality infringed works are available for download or streaming in your home at higher quality? — she said online infringement is the future and “we’ll deal with the future when we get there.” That’s a good argument for a supposed technology advocate; look to the past.

Yes, there will always be infringers who infringe; if something is out there for free, even if illegally, and you think you can get away with taking it, you just might try. But it is illogical to then say we should just forget about the rights creators have with their own works.

There likely will always be hunger on this planet. Yet I give to groups like CARE and The Salvation Army because I want to do at least a tiny part to reduce others’ suffering. Many artists do a lot more; the late singer/songwriter Harry Chapin gave half his revenues to fight hunger.

There likely will always be disease on this planet. Yet many artists devote time, effort and money to support research and treatment. I did a small part earlier this year when I honored a friend’s request and helped sponsor her run for the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America.

There likely will always be infringement on this planet. But along with online enforcement I strongly support education to help future generations understand that one doesn’t have to infringe; that’s why I donate to the Copyright Alliance Education Foundation.

If you feel it’s okay for you to infringe because 1) it will always be easy, and 2) everyone else is doing it, be honest and acknowledge that. But it’s disingenuous to argue — as even some academics such as Fisher, Lessig and Palfrey do — that just because some people infringe, those being infringed should just give up their rights and hope for the best.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 11:31 am by Patrick Ross and is filed under copyright opponents, counterfeit, creators, events, p2p, piracy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.