Jeff's personal morals on copyrights and intellectual property.

Since I am slowly trying to get into academia, most of what I do will probably end up free for academic use anyway, but since the advent of easy file sharing and copying a few years ago, I have had discussions with many smart people about copyrights and what is and is not moral. We are now in a world where copying data is cheap and perfect and the supply of media can always exceed the demand.

The tenets of my view:

• Artists should be paid for their work.
• The parties that supplement the artists in creating their work should be paid.
• The parties that take financial risk on the the artists should be paid.
• It is up to the distributor of media to properly pay these parties.
• A consumer, after purchasing the right to use/enjoy a work indefinitely (listen to a CD, use software), should be able to to copy that work for personal use to any new medium that he sees fit to use as many times as he wants to with the stipulation that only a single copy of the work shall only be in use at any given time
• A consumer may not broadcast/share the product unless he has obtained the right to do so.

A few key items.
The right to use/enjoy a work must be purchased or legally acquired from a good-faith chain of custody. In other words, if media is acquired by copying from a party who has not secured broadcast rights, that is not a good-faith chain of custody, while if media is acquired/created by recording during a legal broadcast, then a good-faith chain of custody has been maintained. Used merchandise is part of a good-faith chain; it is the seller's responsibility to purge himself of all copies of a work upon sale of its media to another party.

The consumer may use tools to break encryption, remove copy protection or other limiting aspects put into the product with the intent of limiting the consumer's right to use and to copy the product. Also, if such aspects of the product do limit the consumer's use of the product, the consumer is justified in acquiring a replacement product from a non-good-faith chain of custody.

The consumer shall not be forced to pay a surcharge on blank media or on copying products which is used as a royalty to mitigate copying losses or as a deterrant to copying. This wrongfully presupposes that the consumer will violate copyright law.

In the case of a product that implies a service contract such as software, if the producer

1. stops servicing that product, and
2. removes the product from the market

In the case of a product that does not imply a service contract such as a work of art, if the producer

1. removes the product from the market and
2. if the producer does not provide a simple way to pay royalties (at their last market rate or lower) for the copying of that product to the public

In other words, to all the producers of easily-copyable products:

1. If I pay for it, let me use it, forever, any way I see fit as long as I am not distributing it to other parties.
2. You may not artificially raise the price by reducing supply.
3. If you inconvenince me by assuming that I will disobey copyright laws, I have the right to do whatever I want to to use the product as I see fit.
4. If you don't want me record it, then do not sell broadcast rights.

To the consumers:

1. Pay for what you use. Unless you have acquired it legitimately, you don't have the right to use it.
2. The right to enjoy/use is not the same as the right to broadcast/distribute.
3. If you sell the right to enjoy/use.. that means you cannot use it anymore off of any media.