Counseling Copyright Infringers May Be A Crime

mdoneil says:

Seems OK to me,
I can’t encourage people to shoot their neighbor, why should I be able to encourage people to break other laws. In my country we call that conspiracy.

Now I agree that Hatch is a bit of a nutjob sometimes. However this proposal seem reasonable after cursory review.

The article distorts the truth: “ Does this mean those who infringe on copyrights, even for fair use reasons, no longer have a right to legal representation?”
Fair use is not infringing on copyright. Fair use, is a permitted -not illegal- use; perhaps that is why it is called fair use. And legal representation implies an ex post facto consultation, after the offense has been committed. Just as an axe murderer is entitled to counsel, so would a copyright infringer. In neither instance can the attorney counsel someone to commit an illegal act, but they can represent them once the act has been committed.

mdoneil says:

Re:Seems OK to me,
I don’t practice law in the US so I really don’t keep up with the inciting v. encouraging v. advising but one certainly can’t tell someone to do something that he or she knows is illegal. If not from a legal perspective this is true from a puerly moral perspective.

Now asking a lawyer a hypothetical is certainly not prohibited in fact hypothetical questioning is a very well researched and reported method of examination. (Not well researched or reported by me, nevertheless). So asking a lawyer if it is illegal to go through a stop sign when no one else is there does not imply that you are planning on running through stop signs, but simply that you want a clarification of the law.

The first Amendment is a wonderful freedom we enjoy but as with all freedoms it must be used wisely so that no one feels a need to contrain its use. Taking peoples’ works without paying is stealing no matter what Amendment you want to hide behind. If it is not fair use, pay the buck or two to the CCC before you copy that journal article for your sister.

The first Amendment allows, among other things to be free from an abridgment of our freedom to speak or our freedom to publish, it does not give us the right to steal protected works, or to encourage others to do so. Stealing the works is obviously wrong, encouraging others to do so may not be as cleary wrong from a legal view, but it is morally repugnant. Just because something is not illegal does not make it right.