Entrusting our speech to multiple different corporate actors is always risky. Yet given how most of the internet is currently structured, our online expression largely depends on a set of private companies ranging from our direct Internet service providers and platforms, to upstream ISPs (sometimes...
I mean, piracy is a real crime, you might not be a software or game developer but if people were free to pirate without consequence, those jobs would be crippled. You wouldn’t go into a bookshop and steal a book, why is software viewed any differently?
I can’t believe people are still making this argument in 2023.
I went to the library and copied a book.
Digital piracy is not theft. There is nothing stolen.
That doesn’t make it right, but stop trying to conflate it with larceny. It is NOT analogous.
Out of curiosity, what are you’re thoughts on the below scenarios:
attempted robbery
If you go to a bank and attempt to steal money, but you were unsuccessful in doing so, there wouldn’t be any loss, but you’d still go to jail and it’s widely accepted as wrong.
getting a service, e.g going to the barbers and running out of the store before paying
There wouldn’t be a loss again
People only seem to gloss over theft when it’s digital, not taking it seriously, it might not directly cause a loss for the developers, but if you’re in a situation where you can afford the software but choose piracy to save money, you’re leeching off someone else’s time and resources, and taking away money that could have been paid to them, for your own selfish desires.
Here’s a scenario: I’m a wizard with the magical ability to clone any object I point at. I see a person with a Rolex watch on their wrist. I point to it and instantly a perfect copy of that Rolex appears on my wrist.
What got stolen? Who got robbed? Who is deprived of anything? And don’t say Rolex got deprived of money, because they still have exactly as much money as before, and nobody is “owed” profit.
If people could be owed profit just because they did work, then I could run around parking lots all day cleaning off people’s cars and then forcing them to pay for my services when they got back.
If people could be owed profit just for creating things, I could go around town singing my original music to people passing by and then forcing them to pay for listening to it.
Both of those scenarios are obviously ridiculous.
Pirating digital media is wrong in the same way that poaching unicorns is wrong. It’s not, because unicorns don’t actually exist, and neither does intellectual property, it’s a myth, a fable, a fabrication that is enforced by powerful corpos in order to forcefully extract undeserved profits from a market of artificial scarcity that they created in the first place.
The difference being, those people didn’t ask for your music, but you needed that software, otherwise you wouldn’t use it.
Lol, so basically confirming my last paragraph then, “doesn’t actually exist” because its digital, what a take.
Respond to my scenario I proposed, if I magically cloned an object like a Rolex, what got stolen? Who is deprived of something? What are they deprived of and how?
Nope, I didn’t necessarily need the software. The point of that illustration is that people and companies aren’t owed profit on something merely because they created it. Money is owned in a mutual social contract, and I don’t agree to that contract for purchase. The reason why that’s not theft though in the case of digital “piracy” is because Nobody Is Being Deprived Of Anything.
Until you can show me clearly what Rolex or the person wearing the Rolex is being deprived of in that example I gave, theft hasn’t been demonstrated because theft means depriving somebody of something against their will or desire. Copying Is Not Stealing
Nope, wrong again. Read what I said more carefully, intellectual property, not just digital. If I go to the library, grab a textbook and hand copy that book onto my own paper, that is totally fine.
If Intellectual property is real, please explain to me how somebody can have an idea “stolen” from them? How would a person be “robbed” of a concept? Here’s an idea I’m making up: “Zixatubayponawa” which is a far away land where the rivers are purple sugar water. Tell me how you would “steal” that from me.
Those aren’t really good equivalents since in the first example, you’re trying to take something away from someone but you fail. The law is not concerned with your skill, just your intent. Attempted murder is illegal even if the victim is still alive.
In the second example, there is absolutely a loss. The barber would have spent time and used resources in order to provide you with that service that they wouldn’t get compensated for. Your involvement directly costs them money and time, unlike with piracy where even a billion people pirating won’t cost the developer any more money than if those people just never played it to begin with.
Unsuccessful attempt to take away? Well, you can point out who was loosing files.
Except saud developers were fired 10 years ago. If you were truly pro-copyright, you would make it personal and inalienable.
You can legally go to the library, xerox every page in a book and leave. Legally. The publishers and author don’t get a penny. What is the difference between that and pirating something online other than it being easier and more convenient?
Ahoy matey, come aboard the good ship I don’t give a fuck
Theft is taking property with the intention to permanently deprive the owner of it, which you were attempting to do
Technically fraud not theft.
And recordable cassette tapes are going to kill the music industry.
The ordinary court system is quite adequate to resolve that sort of thing.
It begins by showing evidence under penalty of perjury that a crime has actually been committed. Then you can get warrants and subpoenas and so on. You don’t get to demand that an ISP shut off a customer just on your say-so.
Many years ago, I was the designated recipient for abuse reports for a large institutional network. We frequently got very firmly-worded demands that we shut off the terrible pirates who were smuggling bootleg copies of The Matrix through various IP addresses on our network.
The problem was … the IP addresses the complaints mentioned, had never been routed. They had never been connected to the Internet. Those IP addresses had never received so much as a ping packet. They certainly were not sharing copies of The Matrix on Kazaa.
The complaints were not only false, but obviously false to anyone who had even basic technical competence to investigate them. They were probably due to a bug in the software the MPAA Agents were using to track down bootleg copies of The Matrix.
Which is to say, some jackhole at the MPAA didn’t even check whether they could actually download The Matrix from a Kazaa host at that address, before emailing me a nastygram telling me to take it down. They threatened us and told us we were breaking the law, incorrectly, because they didn’t check that the crime they were alleging had even actually occurred.
The “copyright industry” have never even tried to behave as law-abiding citizens with honest legal complaints about other people’s conduct. They have consistently perjured themselves, lied to the public, committed felonies against their own customers, demanded dictatorial control over things they don’t own (including your own hard drive), and generally acted like a band of clownish goons.
They don’t get the benefit of the doubt on anything related to Internet technology, ever.
Copying👏 data👏 is👏 not👏 theft.
You trollin’ bruh?
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