I think we all know piracy is not theft. It's robbery and murder at sea. Infringement is not theft either as best I can tell. But ask a lawyer if the question pertains to your specific situation.
Surely the robbery part is theft. :)
No, Silly, Piracy is Theft
81–90 of 103 posts
Re: No, Silly, Piracy is Theft
#82Earlier 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…
> Yes, it's illegal. I don't think anyone actually argues it's not
It depends on where you are. In Spain it's not illegal to make private copies of music and movies, and share it with friends. P2P is slightly different, and a legal void here because, although maybe not completely legal, its prohibition would be unenforceable due to privacy laws.
In fact, the right to make these copies justifies the "canon", a compensation that goes to "spanish RIAA" charging recording media, formerly CD/DVD and recently expanded to hard disks, memory sticks and even phones.
>- Morally, it's hard to argue that it's right
Not so hard, I've seen very convincent reasons. Excuse me if I don't share them, but, as you say, this is often an endless and unproductive argument.
Re: No, Silly, Piracy is Theft
#83Earlier 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 totally agree. This stupid argument comes about for one reason, and one reason only: the law has not yet caught up with technology.
No, it's not stealing. Yes it is wrong - if you don't pay for creative content, content creators won't create, which is a bad outcome for society (and no, don't give me any crap about people creating for free - sure, some might, but I certainly wouldn't be spending my weekends and nights writing an application if I didn't think I'd get some money for it, and I doubt that I'm rare!).
This is where governments are supposed to do their jobs - create laws to encourage desirable behaviour. For example, they could start passing laws to make it illegal to publicly share copyright-protected works. They could also make it illegal to facilitate the sharing of copyright-protected works, putting operations such as TPB under pressure.
Better than just making it a law, make it one of the conditions of membership in the WTO - it's a logical activity for the WTO anyhow, seeing as an increasing percentage of world trade is IP. That way, there is a powerful tool available to force compliance at an international level.
Re: No, Silly, Piracy is Theft
#84>A much better analogy for digital piracy is sneaking into a theater to watch a movie. You are not stealing a copy of that movie, and the theater is free to show the movie to others. But you are stealing revenue that the theater would have earned had you rightfully purchased a ticket. Some cinemas are set up to facilitate sneaking in: having passed the usher to get into one film, you can then stay and watch any numbe…
I'd like to see some evidence or indication that this is deliberate on any level.
Good point; I heard it second-hand, but I think it came from the book How Economics Explains Everything.
Re: No, Silly, Piracy is Theft
#85Re: No, Silly, Piracy is Theft
#86Earlier 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 totally agree. This stupid argument comes about for one reason, and one reason only: the law has not yet caught up with technology. No, it's not stealing. Yes it is wrong - if you don't pay for creative content, content creators won't create, which is a bad outcome for society (and no, don't give me any crap about people creating for free - sure, some might, but I certainly wouldn't be spending my weekends and nigh…
>I certainly wouldn't be spending my weekends and nights writing an application if I didn't think I'd get some money for it, and I doubt that I'm rare
And Python, Perl and PHP...
I think enough people who spend their lives working for free to make it worthwhile!
Re: No, Silly, Piracy is Theft
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 aw…
Exactly. I always get frustrated that gets left out of the debate. The issue is not money. The issue is control. Control is ownership (or a close cousin).
That's why internet music taxes & whatnot are ridiculous. That doesn't restore ownership. Just money.
Re: No, Silly, Piracy is Theft
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
nice to meet you
Re: No, Silly, Piracy is Theft
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
I totally agree. This stupid argument comes about for one reason, and one reason only: the law has not yet caught up with technology. No, it's not stealing. Yes it is wrong - if you don't pay for creative content, content creators won't create, which is a bad outcome for society (and no, don't give me any crap about people creating for free - sure, some might, but I certainly wouldn't be spending my weekends and nigh…
>I certainly wouldn't be spending my weekends and nights writing an application if I didn't think I'd get some money for it, and I doubt that I'm rare http://www.gnu.org/ http://www.linux.org/ http://www.freebsd.org/ http://www.apache.org/ http://www.mysql.com/ http://www.mozilla.org/ And Python, Perl and PHP... I think enough people who spend their lives working for free to make it worthwhile!
Indeed, money is but one potential reward. Social recognition is another.
Though I think most of free software is written for the 'finally this thing does what I want it to do' reward.
Re: No, Silly, Piracy is Theft
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
I totally agree. This stupid argument comes about for one reason, and one reason only: the law has not yet caught up with technology. No, it's not stealing. Yes it is wrong - if you don't pay for creative content, content creators won't create, which is a bad outcome for society (and no, don't give me any crap about people creating for free - sure, some might, but I certainly wouldn't be spending my weekends and nigh…
>I certainly wouldn't be spending my weekends and nights writing an application if I didn't think I'd get some money for it, and I doubt that I'm rare http://www.gnu.org/ http://www.linux.org/ http://www.freebsd.org/ http://www.apache.org/ http://www.mysql.com/ http://www.mozilla.org/ And Python, Perl and PHP... I think enough people who spend their lives working for free to make it worthwhile!
I'm curious - do you actually think that there are people reading Hacker news that don't know about these projects?
Obviously I, and everyone else here, is aware of them, which should have clued you in that you had misread me. I didn't say that no-one will develop software for free, I said that I don't do it, and that I suspect that I'm far from unique.
Besides, if you look, you'll discover that many of the developers on those projects are getting paid for it, one way or another.