Nina Paley blogs here She posts this on her cartoon site: "Copying is an act of love. Please copy & share."

As Nina blogs in ♡License to Love:

Crosbie Fitch's last comment inspired me to make this notice:

Copying art is an act of love. Please copy.

A copyright maximalist would accuse her of theft or grand larceny, whereas an abolitionist, of love.

Which world would we prefer to live in?

Colleges get it all wrong. Copying is not a violation of ethics rules and plagiarism, it is an act of love!!!

Which world do we prefer to live in?

Plagiarism isn't just copying, though. It's claiming credit for someone else's work.

Republishing the Wiles proof of Fermat's Last Theorem is copying. Taking Wiles's name off it and replacing it with your own is plagiarism.

Colleges evidently do get it wrong if students emerge with such a deep seated confusion between copying and deceit.

Good example NN.

Copying is copying (eg. quotation). Lying (eg. about the source of the quotation) is fraud.

All of you got my point exactly.

Nina Paley claims that copying is an act of love. However, if the intent of copying is fraud, laziness or greed, is the copying still an act of love or part of an immoral act of fraud, greed, or laziness?

No Anon, you haven't yet got the point.

There is nothing wrong with the copying - even if plagiarism occurs. The thing that makes plagiarism wrong or immoral is the deceit - the falsehood - the false claims - the misrepresentation - the untruth. Not the copying.

Plagiarism does not require copying. You can take a manuscript from a library shelf, scratch out the author's name and write your own, and refile it as appropriate. That deceit is the wrong.

That the plagiarist would misrepresent another's work as their own indicates their love of that work, that they love it so much they wish it was theirs so that others would love them for it, but they permit this desire to corrupt them, to contrive that wish into effect, to lie - "I did this - love me."

Indeed, most copyright supporters permit their principles to become corrupted by their craving for the power they see this privilege conferring upon them. So, it's not surprising they'd divert the wrong of deceit in plagiarism to the copying that sometimes precedes it - in order to pretend that copyright was a defence against plagiarism, and thus somehow morally justified.

Power corrupts. Monopoly is power. Copyright is a monopoly. Copyright corrupts. See this site's tag line.

Supporting copyright does to your moral integrity what smoking cigarettes does to your lungs. Give it up before it's too late.

Crosbie:

I see you have missed the point.

If you take any action with the intent in the end of doing wrong or harm, then that act is part of a wrong act.

A person copies because they are greedy. Greed is, as you know, one of the seven deadly sins.

A person copies because they intend to take credit for another's work. This action is fraud and a form of stealing.

Copying is rarely an action by itself. If you are copying solely because you in fact are doing so as an act of love, then I understand your intent. If you are copying as part of a crime, the copying is no less a crime. It is the same logic that states now use to confiscate a vehicle used in a crime. Driving is not - unless you break a traffic law - a crime. However, driving as part of a bank holdup is a crime.

Anon, so, someone who takes a book out of a library is committing a crime in the act of borrowing that book - if they do so with the intention to cross out the name of its author and write in their own?

I suppose you'd argue that we should have pre-crime policemen on duty outside libraries to arrest those borrowers suspected to be involved in the preparation of an act of fraud?

Remember, this is your logic for saying that copying is wrong, because it can precede the fraud of plagiarism it is part of that fraud. On that same basis borrowing a book from a library is wrong because it can also precede the fraud of plagiarism.

You really need to re-examine your religious commitment to copyright if you're going to corrupt your logic like this.

Crosbie:

You are distorting my words. What I said was that what you intend when copying colors whether copyright is "love" or, as some people might put it, "evil." If your intent is fraud, as in the example you provided, then the copying is clearly evil.

As for logic, the logic is that of the difference between first degree murder and manslaughter. If you buy bullets and stuff them in a drawer because you plan on target shooting or want to defend your home against potential intrusion, there is no significance attached to the purchase of the bullets should they be used in the heat of a moment to kill someone, which would generally be manslaughter.

On the other hand, if you purchased bullets with the intent of tracking down and killing someone, which you subsequently did, then you would be guilty of first degree murder.

The former act will get you 25 to life. The latter act could get you the death penalty, depending on your state. There is no for "pre-crime" police to determine whether the purchase of bullets was one evil act in a series of evil acts. Neither is there a need to have "pre-crime" police to monitor copying to see whether it is an act of love or an act of fraud or greed. The copier already knows the copier's intent and when the final act in a series of acts shows that intent, then all is revealed. Regardless, the act of copying could well be evil even if the copier is the only one with the knowledge of the copier's evil intent.

None of this has anything to do with copyright, which is a word you keep putting into this conversation. I do not care about copyright. What I care about is this notion that "copying is love." That statement has SOME merit, but to claim that all copying is love is naive. There are many evil purposes to copying, which logically tells you that not all copying can be love.

Anon, I have already argued that even the plagiarist's act of copying is love, that it is only their subsequent deceit that is immoral.

Let's just leave it at that.

Crosbie:

And I have already argued that the plagiarist's act of copying is fraud and the formality of putting the plagiarist's name on the copy is a relatively small detail at that point. We can certainly leave it at that.

The plagiarist never "loved" the original item, the plagiarist only saw the original item as satisfying his need for sloth.

Nina Paley has her declaration on copyright (i.e., copyleft) link here She spells it all out as to what is allowed, that is, to "copy, share, sell, remix, modify, fold, bend, staple, and mutilate Mimi & Eunice but you may not prohibit others from doing the same with any resulting copies or "derivative works"".

Obviously, she wouldn't mind getting credit for the original, but that doesn't seem to be a condition. Read on for further stipulations.

John, credit is a mark of respect. Omitting credit is not necessarily misattribution or plagiarism if no false claim is made concerning a work's authorship. Creative Commons is invidious in giving people the idea they have a right to demand attribution qua credit from all who copy their work.