Plagiarism

ThoughtStorms Wiki

Good but long video on some outrageous plagiarism on YouTube.

It's worth watching because there are some quite well known YouTubers who seem to be lifting texts wholesale.

Not quite sure how I feel about this subject as I don't believe in IntellectualProperty or that ideas (or even expressions of ideas) SHOULD be property given their lack of scarcity. I do believe people have a right not to be misrepresented (which is why while I reject the legitimacy of both copyright and patents I accept trademarks). But do people have a right not to be "erased"? That's an interesting one.

Obviously in an AttentionEconomy being erased can be genuine harm, denying you attention you might otherwise have had. (HBomberguy does eventually get to this point after about 3 hours)

OTOH, just as freedom of association requires freedom to disassociate (ie to shun), does our right to information give us a right to not know or to forget?

Maybe it's a case of duties we owe to potentials rather than actuals. By erasing someone we do remove them from potential wealth and success. But what duties do we owe to potentials? (PotentialPeople)

I'm not removing something from someone by simply forestalling them getting it. If we were to assert the opposite, that counter-factually they'd have been able to monetize better if I didn't take the idea from them, and this means I've "stolen" from them, this would work in the case of copyright.

But more importantly, if gains in possible worlds could create obligations in this world, we'd be in a situation where I could claim that generic rich-person should give me all his money, and if he refuses I could call that "stealing from me". After all he COULD HAVE given me all his money, so his decision not to, denied me the wealth which would have been mine. How is this situation different from the case of the harm of plagiarism?

Obviously, the difference is that we think the true creator of the ideas deserves the rewards more than the plagiarist. So this hinges on our theory of desert. What things do you deserve to be rewarded for? And how is such desert actualized in real law and society.