Counterfeit Copyright Conflation · Monday August 13, 2007 by Crosbie Fitch
Seth Finkelstein observes the mission creep in censorship when interests in censoring pornography are conflated with interests in censoring pro-terrorism sites.
It consequently becomes difficult to argue against censorship (or other human rights violations) without becoming seen as pro-terrorist.
The problem is, pornography is arguably ethical, concerned as it is with our natural desires and instincts to create life and the pleasures of the process. However, the promotion of terrorism is arguably unethical – there are very few arguments in support of it (supernatural beings or genocidal states tend to be involved).
This conflation also happens with copyright, when much is made about counterfeit digital works in order to conflate copyright infringement with fraud.
Let’s consider some examples:
- No-one is happy buying what they thought was an authentic DVD to find out it is not, although they may tolerate it if it was a dirt cheap import and is otherwise digitally identical.
- No-one is happy to buy a bootleg DVD to find out that it’s not a copy of an original DVD, but a low res MPEG version.
- No-one is happy to buy a low res MPEG movie if they find that it’s simply a blank CD-ROM with cheap inlay paper.
Notice that what makes people unhappy is being deceived about what they’re getting – the counterfeit. The fact that a copyright infringement occurs only makes publishers unhappy that their monopoly isn’t being respected.
This is why, in order to obtain popular support, all copyright infringement is conflated with counterfeiting. Because NO-ONE supports counterfeiting. And therefore no-one can be against incredibly draconian punishments against all counterfeiters (oh and this includes copyright infringers of course).
So, if anything the legislation is counterfeit. Citizens are being sold legislation on the grounds that it helps prosecute counterfeiters, and yet they later discover to their horror that it’s actually to prosecute them against copyright infringement.
If only there was a law against counterfeit legislation…
