Does illegal downloading violate the 2nd precept?

[steve19800]

I'm wondering how do you guys come to a conclusion?

With any contested moral issue, when things seem to be getting overly complicated, the ethic of reciprocity (aka Golden Rule) will usually suffice to cut through the sophistry and dictate a felicitous conclusion. In the present case I think we all know perfectly well that if our livelihood depended upon receipt of royalties for our creative work, then we would feel robbed if people were making use of our work in a way that bypassed paying us our due. How then can we treat others like that?

That is also right, Bhante.

I think it depends highly on the circumstances.
Some people copy, for example, a music for him/herself only. Some other people copy hundreds of thousands of the materials and sell it. Some people do not want to download the music because it is considered stealing therefore he or she goes to YouTube every time he wants to listen to that particular music, maybe four times a day? But he might listen the music from the different uploaders, if that makes any difference.

In other occasion, we like a music, pay for it. We download this music and save it to our hard drive. One year later, we decide to donate this music to someone, is this action or the action of the recipient in the future in regards to the music that is given to him is considered stealing?

To what extent copyrighted material is considered legal or illegal? People can forbid us anything they do not want us to do and create a term for it e.g. offensive, abusive, purely intellectual but partially influenced, stealing, etc.. What we do is all wrong. Everything we need to ask for permission, we see a nice house design on the street, decide to use it for our own house, you go and ask the owner of the house, the answer is probably you are not allowed to do that.

But this is not to say that we can do whatever we want to do. That's why I think both stealing and not stealing do make sense.

[Zom]

Do you think copyright law is unethical?

My take is that it has nothing to do with ethics. It is about money (usually, very big money ). Do you know who was the initiator of all these laws? Huge, enormous companies who either "resell" things created by others, or sell "their" products by hiring and paying to people who created that. This is all about big money - not about taking care of some creative people .)

If I put myself in a content creator's shoes, whose livelihood depends on the sale of his content, I too would be outraged that people are stealing my product without paying a penny for it. If you want a luxury good that someone put their labor into and are offering for sale, pay for it. Otherwise, live without it.

This is just a greed. I've been a musician for 10 years and had a band where we recorded an album. We payed a lot of money to make it. After release we sold CD's, of course, but many people just copied it and even uploaded to i-net so others could download and listen. And I tell you, we were alright with this, nobody had some kind of irritation or displeasure. People listen, and that's fine. Some of them pay, some not - that's okay. If you make something for money, you have to think in advance how you gonna get them - because there are different methods to do it. For example, some sell T-shirts and other stuff, most of musicians do gigs and tours and get money from there. The most greedy ones go to courts to fight with pirates or illegal use of "their" music -)

[Mkoll]

If I put myself in a content creator's shoes, whose livelihood depends on the sale of his content, I too would be outraged that people are stealing my product without paying a penny for it. If you want a luxury good that someone put their labor into and are offering for sale, pay for it. Otherwise, live without it.

This is just a greed.

Downloading digital entertainment to indulge in is greed too, so what is your point?

I've been a musician for 10 years and had a band where we recorded an album. We payed a lot of money to make it. After release we sold CD's, of course, but many people just copied it and even uploaded to i-net so others could download and listen. And I tell you, we were alright with this, nobody had some kind of irritation or displeasure. People listen, and that's fine. Some of them pay, some not - that's okay.

Were you paying for your rent, your food, your electricity, etc. with the proceeds from your music?

[Dhammanando]

This is just a greed. I've been a musician for 10 years and had a band where we recorded an album. We payed a lot of money to make it. After release we sold CD's, of course, but many people just copied it and even uploaded to i-net so others could download and listen. And I tell you, we were alright with this, nobody had some kind of irritation or displeasure.

Your personal magnanimity and largesse towards copyright-violators has no bearing whatever on the moral question. It's like saying: "Pickpocketing is morally blameless because if any pickpocket wanted to pick my pocket I'd cheerfully hand over whatever he wanted. It's only greedy possessive people who don't want their pockets picked."

[Mkoll]

This is just a greed. I've been a musician for 10 years and had a band where we recorded an album. We payed a lot of money to make it. After release we sold CD's, of course, but many people just copied it and even uploaded to i-net so others could download and listen. And I tell you, we were alright with this, nobody had some kind of irritation or displeasure.

Your personal magnanimity and largesse towards copyright-violators has no bearing whatever on the moral question. It's like saying: "Pickpocketing is morally blameless because if any pickpocket wanted to pick my pocket I'd cheerfully hand over whatever he wanted. It's only greedy possessive people who don't want their pockets picked."

Touché.

[ihrjordan]

Why is everyone insuating that only things such as entertainment are copied? If I downloaded Bhikku Bodhi's translations of MN suttas would I be considered immoral? This is ridiculous

[ihrjordan]

is it possible to "steal" the Dhamma? Well according to BPS and those in favor of copyright it is somehow...

[Kim OHara]

It's not possible to steal the Dhamma, any more than it is possible to steal Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, but it is perfectly possible to steal a book containing (part of a translation of) the Dhamma, just as it is possible to steal a CD containing (a recording of a performance of) Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The reasoning is exactly the same.


Kim

[pilgrim]

It's not possible to steal the Dhamma, any more than it is possible to steal Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, but it is perfectly possible to steal a book containing (part of a translation of) the Dhamma, just as it is possible to steal a CD containing (a recording of a performance of) Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The reasoning is exactly the same.


Kim

But by downloading, bhikkhu Bodhi's book and Beethoven's 9th symphony, I'm not stealing as neither Beethoven nor B Bodhi is deprived of their asset. Stealing occurs only when the rightful owner is deprived of his asset, not deprived of an opportunity to make more profits. Downloading may be illegal and even immoral as defined by legislation but not by precepts. If I copy your stuff, you do not lose anything. You feel you lose only because commercial interests have enacted laws which gives you this idea that you are entitled to be paid if someone copies your work.

[Mr Man]

Stealing occurs only when the rightful owner is deprived of his asset, not deprived of an opportunity to make more profits. Downloading may be illegal and even immoral as defined by legislation but not by precepts. If I copy your stuff, you do not lose anything. You feel you lose only because commercial interests have enacted laws which gives you this idea that you are entitled to be paid if someone copies your work.

There may be a legal definition of the term theft that has a clause that the rightful owner is deprived of their physical asset but in my opinion illegal downloading is generally considered theft. By illegally downloading you are depriving someone of what is due.

The lay precepts are not a legal code but more a point of reference. Copyright infringement was not an issue at the time of their formulation. In this present day illegally downloading deprives someone of what they are due and is taking what is not freely given, which would seem to be against the precepts.

[robertk]

In the Commentaries they list many areas of stealing includong avoiding taxes and avoidibg custom duties.

[Dhammanando]

is it possible to "steal" the Dhamma? Well according to BPS and those in favor of copyright it is somehow...

As Kim noted, you're overlooking a rather elementary distinction. It’s certainly possible to steal by making an unauthorised use of an original scholarly production in which a portion of the Dhamma happens to be preserved, but whose copyright has not yet expired. To take one example...

Back in 1993, that quaestuary syndicate of rogues that calls itself Wat Dhammakaya decided that the Dhamma could not be copyrighted. Since it couldn’t be copyrighted, they reasoned that they, being a Buddhist institution, were fully entitled to take all of the Pali Text Society’s English translations of Pali texts and put them onto a CD for free distribution. The PTS then threatened to sue for copyright breach and its then President sent the following e-mail to the members of an academic Indology LISTSERV:

• Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 08:46:08 EDT
  From: [email protected]
  Subject: Pali Tipitaka on CD-ROM
  
  
  From: K.R. Norman, President of the Pali Text Society
  
  BUDDHISM AND INDIAN STUDIES
  
  IMPORTANT - PLEASE NOTE VERY CAREFULLY
  
  You may have received a communication from Professor Witzel of Harvard informing you that the Dhammakaya Foundation has completed the input of the whole of the Pali Tipitaka on CD-ROM, and will be distributing it free.
  
  Please take note that the material which the Foundation proposes to distribute in this way is the property of the Pali Text Society, of which I am President. The Foundation has no right to copy the material on CD-Rom and distribute it in that or any other way. We have been negotiating with the Foundation for some time with a view to possible copying and distribution, but the negotiations have not been completed, and any copying, distribution and use are therefore in breach of our rights.
  
  Please also take note that we reserve the right to take legal action to enforce our rights in this important material against those who disregard them.
  
  The Pali Text Society is a non-profit-making organisation established for many years and dedicated to the advancement of the study of Pali texts and the Pali language. The material which the Dhammakaya Foundation has put on CD-ROM represents many years of work and original research by this Society's scholars. Any legal proceedings which we institute will be necessary to enable us to carry out the purposes for which this organisation was founded. The pursuance of academic studies everywhere becomes impossible if the rights of others are abused as is happening in this case.

Though for a time the Dhammakaya rogues tried to take the moral high ground by bleating about how the Dhamma “couldn’t be copyrighted”, in the end their lawyers warned them that they could expect to get their arses badly kicked in the courtroom and so they backed down.

[steve19800]

In addition to previous post.
What is the precise meaning of adinnadana? In my opinion, taking what is not given is not the same as stealing.

[Dhammanando]

What is the precise meaning of adinnadana?

That would depend on what precisely you mean by "precise". If you mean at the strictly lexical level, then ...

• "Taking (ādānaṃ) the not-given (a + dinnaṃ)."

But if you mean what in English would be its nearest natural equivalent, then the answer is "stealing", since "taking what is not given" is not a natural or regular English expression and the stock Pali glosses are "depriving another [person] of" (parasaṃharaṇaṃ), "theft" (theyyaṃ), and "robbery" (corikā).

In my opinion, taking what is not given is not the same as stealing.

Then I suspect you are falling into an excessive literalism.

Or, in the jargon of Bible translators, it may be that you're semantically acceding too much to form-equivalence and too little to dynamic-equivalence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_a ... quivalence

[steve19800]

What is the precise meaning of adinnadana?

That would depend on what precisely you mean by "precise". If you mean at the strictly lexical level, then ...

• "Taking (ādānaṃ) the not-given (a + dinnaṃ)."

But if you mean what in English would be its nearest natural equivalent, then the answer is "stealing", since "taking what is not given" is not a natural or regular English expression and the stock Pali glosses are "depriving another [person] of" (parasaṃharaṇaṃ), "theft" (theyyaṃ), and "robbery" (corikā).

In my opinion, taking what is not given is not the same as stealing.

Then I suspect you are falling into an excessive literalism.

Or, in the jargon of Bible translators, it may be that you're semantically acceding too much to form-equivalence and too little to dynamic-equivalence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_a ... quivalence

It is good to understand the original language I guess and what the word really means. Translators do not have the same translations. Just an example, some translators translate musavada as incorrect speech, some say musavada means lying. Incorrect speech is not the same as lying. Maybe they think the broader the meaning of the word the better. It could be wholesome but that is not necessarily what the precept says.

I still think second precept is really depending on the circumstances. Proper conduct derives from laws not the other way around. Who made (modern) law? 200 years later, touching a fence of a property belongs to someone could be considered as trespassing. The degree of offence depends on how the offender skin "contaminate" the fence. If life is getting easier, less complicated and competition, more compassionate people, then it's surely a good thing. Law is not the same as precept. I think there are laws forbid Buddhists from practicing, breaking the law will definitely upset some people, not to mention the consequences. Obeying this law is ok, practicing Buddhism is also ok.