Copyright
I wanted to ask the rabbi a few questions regarding copyright. I am aware of the article that the rabbi wrote in Tecumin 25. I admit: I did not study it in depth, I only skimmed it. If the answers to my questions are there, I would be happy to know. From what I did notice, the prohibition is not because of a “Dina demalchuta” but because of a law of “Thou shalt not steal.” At the end of the day, my motive for maintaining copyright is primarily moral and not halakhic, and yet I have a few specific questions. I would be happy to receive a halakhic opinion on the one hand and a moral opinion on the other.
Many years ago I heard that there is a permission to download one song from a CD. To this day I have not understood the origin of this permission. Is there a halachic answer to this?
If I saw a movie in the cinema, do I have permission to download it?
Today, there is an option on the Internet to buy individual songs or movies. If there is a particular song that I want to buy but it does not exist, is there really a “one song from a disc” option? And what if I want a movie that is not there? How deep do I need to search the Internet to find what I want?
And what about downloading old songs, whose original copyright holders have passed away? Or are they very, very hard to find in stores or online?
I hope the questions are clear, thanks in advance!
My article dealt mainly with the origin of the right to intellectual property and less with its halachic boundaries.
It seems to me that the Dina Demalkuta operates in this field in the opposite way to what everyone thinks. Everyone thinks it is the source of intellectual property, but as you wrote correctly, I think there is a source in the Torah. The Dina Demalkuta is a source for permitting the forbidden, since the monarchy has the right to permit in the laws of wealth (to give up wealth). Therefore, in practice, what determines this matter is the law, not the halacha.
All explanations of a single poem, etc., are the opinions of one person or another that have no actual halakhic source. Some are better explanations and some are less so. The question is what the law states, and that is better to ask a lawyer rather than a rabbi.
I don’t think there is a permit to download a movie you saw in the theater, because with a subscription service you don’t pay to see it. Unless the law allows it (for non-commercial use it may be allowed, at least a one-time viewing if not an actual download). Some allow it if you don’t buy it anyway. But then you have to be careful not to show it to people who will buy it (who haven’t seen it), and that’s something that’s hard to stand by and remember over time.
When it is no longer possible to buy it or see it in a movie theater, then perhaps there is permission to download it. Again, if the law prohibits it, then it may be prohibited by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The same goes for a song, if it can’t be obtained for money, I think there’s a reason to allow it to be downloaded. I don’t know how to determine how much to search for. Until you’re convinced that it doesn’t exist.
Beyond that, there is also a permit for a sea otter or a road that is occupied by many. Things that are in practice no man’s land, meaning that the whole world downloads them freely and no one buys them, maybe there is a permit to download them. An unenforceable law is not a law, and common sense also says that there is no point in being strict here.
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Asks:
How do you examine something that is actually a nobody?
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Rabbi:
I don’t know enough about this media. In principle, you should check online and if you don’t see rights there or someone selling it, or if you see that everyone is downloading it for free and there’s no problem, then I think it’s fine.
I came across a book that in the course of its writings writes:
“It is worth noting that the concept of ownership is not an issue that came from the Torah passages, specifically, and for example in those two women who came before King Solomon to decide who owns the living child and who owns the dead one. That is, the mother is the owner of her son, but her ownership is not like the ownership of a mother who can sell and use it, but rather all her ownership exists only in what keeps her son with her, and why was it not asked from where it is written that a son is owned by his mother and that she can legally claim to maintain her son with her, and where were the boundaries of that ownership determined to mean that she cannot sell and use it but only hold it.
Of course, this is not a question at all, and the concept of ‘his’ is something that is within the scope of man, and there are things that in themselves are within the scope of man and do not need a passage at all, and all forms of ownership that exist in uses and sales, etc. All of these are existing understandings within the limits of the concept itself of how a person's boundary is maintained, and there is room to understand that in objects of existence, all their use is dedicated to him, while his ownership of his son is only in what the son is dedicated to being with him. Similarly, whether a person owns himself has no source from a verse (and indeed we learn from the absence of liability for injuries and other human rights, but of course there is no evidence for this), and it is a simple and basic thing that all concepts of ownership come after the person stands for himself and in his ownership, and from there came the areas of authority how and how the money is maintained in the hands of each person.
And if there is such a concept as ‘copyright’ that a person also owns a creation - and not only as a limit – Although no tangible object is held by him, this too is in the understanding that a person's domain is not limited to the perception of existing wealth, but can also exist in the idea, and on the other hand, the boundaries of such a domain are also determined according to the case, because it is clear that a person who created a certain melody does not own the melody to tell others not to play that melody, and the violation of his domain will be according to the case whether in preventing copying or stealing a sale, etc. And consider yourself someone who owns Bitcoin coins, and that there are those who will allow someone to break into his virtual possession and steal his money from him, and there is no doubt that this is complete theft, and also any break into the virtual possession of his friend (who has it for the purposes of livelihood) is complete theft. And for the aforementioned reason, sermons on wealth are a person's domain, and a domain can exist in this matter as well and not in Rather, a real perception of the matter.
And all the issues of the chapter "Do not dig" came about this matter, by virtue of the perception that ownership of land is not perceived as ownership of movables, and a person cannot relate to his land according to boundaries that he will determine by a fence and within that fence he is the owner alone and has no business with the whole world, and he can also dig to the abyss and destroy all his surroundings, claiming that I am doing mine and you have no business with me at all. And the reason he cannot do so is because ownership of land is not perceived in a specific area that is bounded by the boundaries of a fence, but rather has a relationship with its surroundings, and anyone who buys land, on the one hand, has a limited area that cannot exist alone without reference to its surroundings, and on the other hand, its boundaries are wide and can demand that its surroundings not harm it and not be considered as encroaching on theirs, because when a person buys land, his area exists in interaction with the environment, and a chapter will not be dug up to determine the boundaries of how a person's area exists in relation to his environment.
And the laws of the chapter on partners that can be forced from the city's residents to spend money on a gatehouse, etc., simply put, "Come, let's go to Medina" and "This is a book about each individual, because a person does not live for himself in his own sphere alone, but a person has a relationship with his surroundings, and when he lives in the city he has a relationship with others, and the sphere is not his alone but everyone's as well, and it is as if they have acquired it for this purpose that it is necessary to spend money for the maintenance of the city, and the compulsion to do so is not an obligation imposed on him as a commandment, but on the contrary, that he cannot live in the city without personally taking care of the needs of the city, and he is condemned as hindering them in what takes place in the city and does not spend money on the expenses of the city, and it is necessary to extend this and I have shortened it.
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