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Comment: Re:Teddy Roosevelt Disapproves (Score 1) 147

by temcat (#39084983) Attached to: Kentucky Telephone Companies Pushing For Option To End Basic Service

Yep, that's what I mean. Just as with the government, it's about monolopy, not about price discrimination as such. But with a market monopoly, you can have another provider (though you are not entitled to it, as many assume). With a coercive monopoly, you cannot even have that.

Comment: Re:Teddy Roosevelt Disapproves (Score 1) 147

by temcat (#39083801) Attached to: Kentucky Telephone Companies Pushing For Option To End Basic Service

Why exactly is price discrimination bad? After all, it's based on the same nice principle as progressive and even flat percent rate taxation: we take more from you for the same thing just because we can. But market price discrimination is better, because you can in theory (and often do in practice) find another provider of goods and services. No such thing with the government.

Comment: Re:Hardly surprising (Score 2) 152

by temcat (#38993369) Attached to: Hacked Emails Reveal Russian Astroturfing Program

From my perspective, there is no problem at all on the part of bloggers and activists receiving money, since the validity of a point of view does not suddenly change just because its expression is paid for.

However, as a Russian, I do object to paying Russian taxpayers' money for that. I'm not concerned about American money since I don't pay taxes in the USA.

Comment: Re:The actual damages... (Score 1) 647

by temcat (#38552634) Attached to: Actual Damages For 1 Download = Cost of a 1 License

As I've already pointed out earlier, the very notion of "unlicensed copying" exists due to copyright. Otherwise we would simply talk about contracts which are only applicable to their respective parties.

Therefore, unlicensed copying can only be unethical to the extent that it constitues a breach of a real contract and not by itself.

Comment: Re:The actual damages... (Score 1) 647

by temcat (#38552220) Attached to: Actual Damages For 1 Download = Cost of a 1 License

When I make something to share, I have the right to say "if I share this with you, you have to promise not to copy it."

What you describe here is basically an explicit contract between specific parties (assuming the other party agreed not to copy). Breaking such a contract is indeed unethical. Such contracts regarding works of art are entirely possible and enforceable in absence of copyright (I'm not saying they are possible in each case that copyright allows). And those - not copyright - are, in essense, what I rely on in my own business.

Now for another ethical conundrum. If someone ELSE has broken their promise not to copy a thing, and you obtain one of these copies, is it ethically wrong?

Yep, this is exactly where copyright makes a difference. You weren't a party to the contract with the first distributor, so you cannot possibly breach it. Copyright, in effect, arbitrarily states that you do.

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