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In the case of stealing: You deny somebody else the possibility of buying the product. In the case of cloning: You deny the progenitor the claim to its creatio

In the case of stealing: You deny somebody else the possibility of buying the product. In the case of cloning: You deny the progenitor the claim to its creation. In the case of downloads: You make a copy of something. Whether it equates to a lost sale or not is a the point of contention. In many cases it may simply be the case that the product is unavailable, at all, or through conventional distribution channels. In fairness that goes to a certain extent for cloning as well, but the big issue there is an unwitting consumer can buy a clone thinking it's the real thing, with possible consequences for the consumer, and perhaps even damaging the image of the creator of the original product.

olalonde 10y ago
And that's what I meant... You are doing all sorts of mental gymnastics to draw an arbitrary line between two things which are essentially the same. What if the Chinese cloned app was distributed through Bittorrent, would it then become legitimate? What if it the original app wasn't available in China or only available in English? etc. I think the elephant in the room is that most of the "anti copyright" crowd aren't really anti copyright at all but simply use Bittorrent for pragmatic reasons (which is OK, but please spare us the ad hoc moral philosophies). </rant>
- ricksplat 10y ago
  and you're talking poorly thought out hypotheticals a "Chinese cloned app distributed through Bittorrent"? Do you mean a "competing app", in which case it's fair game. Do you mean a straight copy? You might have a discussion there, but why involve Chinese people? Do you mean something like [legit] "ReactOS" which is a reimplementation of Windows XP? That satisfies the needs of a wider unserved market that still needs it? Or some hypothetical "vigilante localised" app for people who need it in their own language. Sounds fair enough if the developer isn't serving that market.

olalonde 10y ago

And that's what I meant... You are doing all sorts of mental gymnastics to draw an arbitrary line between two things which are essentially the same. What if the Chinese cloned app was distributed through Bittorrent, would it then become legitimate? What if it the original app wasn't available in China or only available in English? etc. I think the elephant in the room is that most of the "anti copyright" crowd aren't really anti copyright at all but simply use Bittorrent for pragmatic reasons (which is OK, but please spare us the ad hoc moral philosophies). </rant>

ricksplat 10y ago
and you're talking poorly thought out hypotheticals a "Chinese cloned app distributed through Bittorrent"? Do you mean a "competing app", in which case it's fair game. Do you mean a straight copy? You might have a discussion there, but why involve Chinese people? Do you mean something like [legit] "ReactOS" which is a reimplementation of Windows XP? That satisfies the needs of a wider unserved market that still needs it? Or some hypothetical "vigilante localised" app for people who need it in their own language. Sounds fair enough if the developer isn't serving that market.