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No, Silly, Piracy is Theft

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Re: No, Silly, Piracy is Theft

#71

Post by alex_c »

blogimus wrote: post #69
pg wrote: post #39

The mistake in this analogy is that the stars in boxes represent things one already has, while the dollar signs represent things one might get in the future. Causing someone not to get income they might otherwise have gotten is not theft. If it were, giving someone bad financial advice would also be theft. Because taking something someone already has is so much more serious than causing them not to get something they…

I would say " A mistake" rather than " The mistake." Another mistake in this analogy is that between criminal and civil law. Theft, in most if not all countries, is a criminal offense. Piracy, formally known as copyright infringement (or copyright violation), is a criminal offense when done for financial gain, civil offense otherwise in countries which recognize software copyright. The vast majority of occurrences of…

That's what annoys me about this endless argument. The entire reason it's endless is because it confuses and mingles legal and moral aspects:

- Yes, it's illegal. I don't think anyone actually argues it's not, but somehow it still keeps popping up as an argument to support that it's theft.

- Legally, as far as I know, theft and copyright infringement have very different meanings. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm willing to bet that neither are any of the people arguing piracy=theft. Anyway, I don't really see how arguing and personal opinions can come into this. The law is what it is.

- Morally, it's hard to argue that it's right, but at least this is the only part where you CAN actually have any kind of debate.

People arguing about different things without realizing it = recipe for endless, unproductive argument.

Re: No, Silly, Piracy is Theft

#72

Post by bart111 »

to understand that it does not steal income, you would need to live in place where authorized copy of MS Office exceeds net month salary of an Engineer. Would you pay one month salary for MS Windows? This is something that Western companies just do not understand when making business in Eastern Europe, China, Vietnam. When they hire guys to work for 300usd a month that's perfectly fine. When they offer software written by Indians for the same price in India as in the US - they consider it normal too? Very interesting logic.

I make over 100usd/hr and I pay for my software. My colleges in developing countries make it in a week and I don't blame them for copying software. Otherwise they would stay forever poor instead of learning stuff.

Re: No, Silly, Piracy is Theft

#73

Post by startingup »

pg wrote: post #39

The mistake in this analogy is that the stars in boxes represent things one already has, while the dollar signs represent things one might get in the future. Causing someone not to get income they might otherwise have gotten is not theft. If it were, giving someone bad financial advice would also be theft. Because taking something someone already has is so much more serious than causing them not to get something they…

If I hire a financial planner and he gave me bad advice, he could be liable (depending on the laws of the state, exclusions on the contract and so on). So bad analogy there.

Re: No, Silly, Piracy is Theft

#74

Post by blogimus »

alex_c wrote: post #71
blogimus wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say " A mistake" rather than " The mistake." Another mistake in this analogy is that between criminal and civil law. Theft, in most if not all countries, is a criminal offense. Piracy, formally known as copyright infringement (or copyright violation), is a criminal offense when done for financial gain, civil offense otherwise in countries which recognize software copyright. The vast majority of occurrences of…

That's what annoys me about this endless argument. The entire reason it's endless is because it confuses and mingles legal and moral aspects: - Yes, it's illegal. I don't think anyone actually argues it's not, but somehow it still keeps popping up as an argument to support that it's theft. - Legally, as far as I know, theft and copyright infringement have very different meanings. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm willing to…

I don't disagree that copyright infringement is bad for those in our business who rely on sales of software or media licenses. And sure there are negative residuals like trickle down economics of the media and software publishers. But it is not cut and dried/black and white. What about fair use? What about abandonware? The law is what it is only now. We (as a society) change the law as we use it. The new round of IP laws, such as the DMCA, are new and the full effects not yet known.

Arguing about this is good because it fosters thinking and may prompt people to actually DO something to improve our current situation.

Re: No, Silly, Piracy is Theft

#75

Post by dionidium »

I think part of what gets confused in these discussions is that there are (at least) two reasons we might restrict a behavior: 1) because the act itself causes harm; 2) because allowing the act to occur will lead to an undesirable outcome.

Historically, copyright law is type (2) -- specifically, it's a response to the threat that creators will not create without financial incentive. The copying isn't itself undesirable; we're more interested in encouraging a specific outcome.

Where most of the purportedly analogous arguments go wrong is that they describe actions that are type (1).

As an example, lots of people here are suggesting that a better analogy to file sharing is the act of sneaking into a movie theater. But this seems pretty clearly to be a case of an act that is restricted due to (1); that is, it's illegal because it's trespassing, which is undesirable in its own right.

Re: No, Silly, Piracy is Theft

#76

Post by netcan »

blogimus wrote: post #74
alex_c wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what annoys me about this endless argument. The entire reason it's endless is because it confuses and mingles legal and moral aspects: - Yes, it's illegal. I don't think anyone actually argues it's not, but somehow it still keeps popping up as an argument to support that it's theft. - Legally, as far as I know, theft and copyright infringement have very different meanings. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm willing to…

I don't disagree that copyright infringement is bad for those in our business who rely on sales of software or media licenses. And sure there are negative residuals like trickle down economics of the media and software publishers. But it is not cut and dried/black and white. What about fair use? What about abandonware? The law is what it is only now. We (as a society) change the law as we use it. The new round of IP…

I think the problem was with bad arguing.

One person arguing the legality. Another, the morality. A third steps in with semantics. Since they all use the same words they think hey are talking about the same thing. But they are not. If you replaced the words they used with the words they mean they'd sound like a pack of hyenas.

Re: No, Silly, Piracy is Theft

#77

Post by netcan »

startingup wrote: post #73
pg wrote: post #39

The mistake in this analogy is that the stars in boxes represent things one already has, while the dollar signs represent things one might get in the future. Causing someone not to get income they might otherwise have gotten is not theft. If it were, giving someone bad financial advice would also be theft. Because taking something someone already has is so much more serious than causing them not to get something they…

If I hire a financial planner and he gave me bad advice, he could be liable (depending on the laws of the state, exclusions on the contract and so on). So bad analogy there.

No good analogy. Giving bad advice professionally can be illegal (so is piracy). But it's still not theft.

Re: No, Silly, Piracy is Theft

#78

Post by blogimus »

netcan wrote: post #76
blogimus wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree that copyright infringement is bad for those in our business who rely on sales of software or media licenses. And sure there are negative residuals like trickle down economics of the media and software publishers. But it is not cut and dried/black and white. What about fair use? What about abandonware? The law is what it is only now. We (as a society) change the law as we use it. The new round of IP…

I think the problem was with bad arguing. One person arguing the legality. Another, the morality. A third steps in with semantics. Since they all use the same words they think hey are talking about the same thing. But they are not. If you replaced the words they used with the words they mean they'd sound like a pack of hyenas.

Welcome to humanity.

Re: No, Silly, Piracy is Theft

#79

Post by RobertL »

netcan wrote: post #76
blogimus wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree that copyright infringement is bad for those in our business who rely on sales of software or media licenses. And sure there are negative residuals like trickle down economics of the media and software publishers. But it is not cut and dried/black and white. What about fair use? What about abandonware? The law is what it is only now. We (as a society) change the law as we use it. The new round of IP…

I think the problem was with bad arguing. One person arguing the legality. Another, the morality. A third steps in with semantics. Since they all use the same words they think hey are talking about the same thing. But they are not. If you replaced the words they used with the words they mean they'd sound like a pack of hyenas.

To take it one step further the problem is that everyone keeps talking around the fact that the entire argument is centered on "money" not "piracy". Before the internet and before personal computers artists had mechanical control of who had access to their products. That just isn't true anymore and what it means is that artists need to find some new business models. Once they do that the whole issue is going to go away. And that's a good thing, because I've been debating it since the internet was born and that's more than 15 years and I'm getting tired of going round and round and round on the same old arguments. Time to move on.

Re: No, Silly, Piracy is Theft

#80

Post by ii »

noodle wrote: post #3

no, silly, piracy is not theft. piracy is piracy, its not a theft or not theft issue, its a different animal. the rebuttal makes the assumption that pirates will actually pay for the item if they can't get it for free. 90% (i made this number up) of pirates would not pay for the item that they're pirating. hypothetically, if i were unable to pirate photoshop, i'd use gimp instead. i wouldn't go buy photoshop. so, pir…

Good point here. In case of Adobe and Microsoft piracy actually creates income.

If we didn't have pirated MS Office and Adobe Creative Suite folks would improve openoffice.org and the GIMP/Scribus/Inkscape instead and these monopolies would die and lose everything.

Piracy actually helps software monopolies to be de facto standards and kills all alternatives (or keeps alternatives unusable).

Thus software piracy "steals" only our own freedom.

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