11 ms·

Convenience does not justify theft. You don't have an entitlement to consume specific content.

shmerl 7y ago
Same as pushing DRMed exclusives for rent doesn't help reducing it.
zaksoup 7y ago
I really think we need new language around digital content. I'm not a lawyer but it seems intuitive to say "the reason theft is bad is because you're taking something from somebody else that they, then, no longer have" or "you did not compensate somebody for services that, had they provided those services to somebody else, they would otherwise be compensated for." With digital content this is just not the case. The original file still exists. You not paying for a movie you download does not deprive the license-holder of an opportunity to offer that download to somebody else. Only the opportunity to sell it to you, one they wouldn't have had in the first place because of [your stance on draconian DRM, high prices for streaming, needing multiple different services instead of a single stop, etc]. What did they lose?
- sjy 7y ago
  It’s a big assumption that you wouldn’t have purchased the product anyway. Sure, it’s often true, but there are clearly many people who dislike DRM and subscription fees who would nonetheless accept them if the alternative was to forego copyrighted entertainment altogether. The loss of the opportunity to sell to ‘you’ is not negligible.
  - kelnos 7y ago
    Not sure why you're being downvoted. It's certainly true that while there are many people who would not pay for the content at any price, there are also many people who would stop pirating and instead pay, if they got the right price, format, terms, etc.
    - LeoNatan25 7y ago
      But that's not what the parent is saying. They are saying that if piracy stopped dead cold, almost all pirates would just go and buy the content they were pirating. That's categorically not true, or at least not 100% true. People would probably buy stuff, but at a rate so low, the industry would be hard-pressed to notice the difference.
      - acdha 7y ago
        They didn’t say “almost all”, only that there were many people who would. That seems highly plausible given how many millions of people have pirated content: no, it wouldn’t be everyone buying everything they’ve downloaded but even a modest percentage would be a noticeable increase in sales. There’s a widely accepted claim that Netflix entering a market correlated with piracy going down because many people are looking for something to watch at a reasonable price. The person who is looking for, say, the latest release or determined not to support certain large media companies is probably still going to hoist the Jolly Roger but that’s far from everyone.
        LeoNatan25 7y ago
        Yes, there are always people on the edges of the spectrum. But most people who can afford it, will prefer to pay some price for the most amount of content. For a time, that service was Netflix, but it is no longer the case (not necessarily Netflix' fault).
kempbellt 7y ago
>You don't have an entitlement to consume specific content. If it's on the internet and you can access it, yes you do. It's like arguing that if you watch a concert through the fence, rather than paying to get in, you're stealing from the musicians. This "theft" argument is old.
- diminoten 7y ago
  You couldn't be more wrong. You do not have an entitlement to intellectual property, our entire society is built on top of that concept. It's more like you're saying you get to use any logos you want because you can download the images for them on their website. The only reason you can listen to a concert outside of the venue is because there's no way to stop you that's also in any way proportionate to the crime. Edit: I'm rate limited so here's a clarification. My point is that just because it's available doesn't mean you ought to have access to it. You do, no arguments there, but should you? No. You are not entitled to that media by virtue of the fact that it is available to you, much like you are not entitled to the contents of someone's home just because their door is unlocked. You're not satan if you download a TV show, but I hate it when people try to rationalize that behavior with a moral argument.
  - LeoNatan25 7y ago
    > The only reason you can listen to a concert outside of the venue is because there's no way to stop you that's also in any way proportionate to the crime. As is stopping people from pirating. Where there is will, there is a way. The promise of Netflix was that virtually all content (or at least a very large percentage of it) would be there, under one subscription, at optimal quality. And convenience. As years have gone by, that promise is nothing but a husk (not necessarily by Netflix' wrong doing).
    - diminoten 7y ago
      I agree, I don't think the individual pirates are ever going to be in any real trouble. HOWEVER, while it's impossible to find every person who improperly listened to a concert without paying for a ticket, it is not impossible to find every person who improperly obtained a video file for content they haven't paid for. Just something to keep in mind as we talk about this; you can actually find the people who did it, and there's actual (digital) evidence, if the government ever decides to change its mind on the issue. Let me be clear; I don't give a shit if someone pirates digital media. But I do think it's a personal failing of mine that I don't care. I do, in principle, believe in the concept of intellectual property, and I do, in principle, believe someone who owns an idea can decide to only give it to people who have paid. However, on a purely practical level, I cast no judgement towards anyone who violates that belief, even though I do understand that it does cause real, tangible harm.
paxys 7y ago
There are valid arguments for whether it is right nor wrong, but it is most certainly not "theft". Call it copyright infringement or piracy or whatever else.
- steveeq1 7y ago
  https://torrentfreak.com/images/piracy-is-not-theft.png https://torrentfreak.com/images/piracy-is-not-theft.png
  - LeoNatan25 7y ago
    You should post the full image: https://i.imgur.com/FPoJnH3.png https://i.imgur.com/FPoJnH3.png ;-) Arr matey BTW—I never thought that I would still find use of these things from early 2000s. Going into the 2010s, it looked so promising. But they couldn't have a good thing going.
    - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
      Copyright infringement doesn't change whether you charge for the copies or not. No authorization === infringement. Fair use privileges never let you reproduce and distribute an entire work for casual consumption.
      - LeoNatan25 7y ago
        The only difference is there are stricter rules for gross copyright infringement.
      - beatgammit 7y ago
        But torrents don't distribute the entire work, they distribute fragments of a work with instructions on how to reassemble them. ;) That being said, the point here isn't to argue that file sharing is ok, the point is that making something harder to consume legally than illegally is a recipe for failure. Media companies try to maintain maximum control over their content and are surprised when people innovate ways to distribute it more simply? I just want to have a file (preferably legal) on my computer that I can watch whenever I want with whatever software that I want. I would probably cancel my Netflix subscription and spend more total buying content if that purchase option was available. I would rent far more movies and TV shows if they were more reasonably priced ($1-2 per movie, $0.50 per TV episode or something), probably spending more in total if they were available DRM-free (as in, just an MP4 stream from some CDN). I don't want to steal stuff, I just want to consume media in a convenient, DRM-free way. I don't want to steal stuff, but I absolutely don't want to be locked in to a content provider.
LeoNatan25 7y ago
Sort your legal definitions. Copyright infringement is not theft.
- my_usernam3 7y ago
  "You wouldn't download a car"
  - LeoNatan25 7y ago
    Would if I could. Still not theft. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
    - archi42 7y ago
      What a glorious world that would be... I'd absolutely upload you a car, if you upload me a good drink. Or maybe we can put a FOSS car on GitHub?
      - LeoNatan25 7y ago
        I'm sure once such a project becomes technologically feasible, FOSS designs will happen.
  - OJFord 7y ago
    I would if you uploaded the .stl
- friedman23 7y ago
  Why do you think this matters?
  - buzzerbetrayed 7y ago
    Why does using the proper definition of words matter? I think that should be fairly obvious. "Downloading copyrighted music is murder." Ok, then downloading copyrighted music should be punished like murder. Oh, it isn't Murder? Well, it also isn't theft. So it shouldn't be punished like it is theft or treated like it is theft in conversation. It should be punished like and treated as copyright infringement, which it is.
tenebrisalietum 7y ago
I mean most of this in a devil's-advocate sense: The proper economic arrangement for those who wish to make a living with creative works is patronage. Someone asks you to make something, you make it for them, then you get paid. You then don't get paid until you make another work. Thus content creators shouldn't have an automatic entitlement to get paid each time someone reads/listens to/watches a work. If you work once, it's only fair for you to get paid once. The idea of royalties that pay beyond the initial act of creation is unfair because you should not get paid to do nothing. Copyright is meant to be temporary scheme to encourage creative works. It is not meant to establish ownership over non-physical goods like music, art, etc. though it is definitely currently abused to be that way. I guess at some point in history we needed copyright to encourage more creativity, but honestly look around you - we are saturated with so much intellectual property. So many movies, software UIs, rehashes of rehashes. Does society really need/benefit from the incentive of copyright/royalty any longer? It seems only entrenched legacies are significantly benefiting currently.
- AVTizzle 7y ago
  This doesn't make economic sense. If I create a piece of art that many people can enjoy, why shouldn't I get compensated for adding that value to their lives? Same is true for software.
  - tenebrisalietum 7y ago
    Expecting endless (or effectively endless) compensation, or any compensation you demand unilaterally, for adding value once, seems abusive.
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      The correct solution is to fix copyright terms to 10 or 20 years, and the problems fix themselves.
- tashi 7y ago
  Similarly, the proper economic arrangement for those who wish to consume art is patronage. If you want to view someone's creative work, you must hire them, come to an agreement about the subject to be depicted and materials to be used, and commit to paying the full amount upon delivery. The idea of reproduction of artistic works from all over the world and from any time in the past? It makes everything too complicated to analyze in terms of what's fair!
AYBABTME 7y ago
If I pay for streaming service Z but don't like their streaming tech or the geofraphical restrictions they put on show Y that I was watching while traveling, I feel that there's no ethical harm happening if I obtain a copy of Y for private storage. It might not be legal or might be in violation of ToS, but personally I wouldn't call this theft. Would you agree?
- tomnipotent 7y ago
  > no ethical harm According to whom? If region enforcement is in place, it's because of legal obligations. So yes, there's ethical harm involved when you do something like this because you're intentionally circumventing a business's legal obligations to their partners.
  - spookthesunset 7y ago
    One thing in ethics you might ask is “if everybody did it, what would happen”? If everybody pirated their videos, maybe media companies would get a clue and make a better product. Nobody pirates music anymore—it is much easier to just pay a small amount to Spotify and the like and get access to almost any song you’d want on basically all your devices. If anything, perhaps it is more ethical to hard pirate video than it is to let media companies shoot them selves in the foot...
    - tomnipotent 7y ago
      > “if everybody did it, what would happen”? People would stop producing content because there's no money in it. So yeah, it's harmful.
      - AYBABTME 7y ago
        People wouldn't stop producing content because regional restrictions became something that customers don't want to pay for anymore. Any entity that refuses to change those restrictions would leave the market open for another entity who's willing to do business without imposing these terms. The demand for the fundamental content would remain and if some suppliers are unwilling to provide for the demand, other suppliers would arise.
jammygit 7y ago
I don’t think theft is a legitimate term to use. We need a new one for “used without permission”
- beatgammit 7y ago
  Well, we have trespassing and copyright infringement. Neither of those have the emotional baggage as theft, so the movie industry uses the term for maximum effect.
wolco 7y ago
If I buy the theft term. Is all theft wrong? Is theft wrong in this case?

Same as pushing DRMed exclusives for rent doesn't help reducing it.

I really think we need new language around digital content. I'm not a lawyer but it seems intuitive to say "the reason theft is bad is because you're taking something from somebody else that they, then, no longer have" or "you did not compensate somebody for services that, had they provided those services to somebody else, they would otherwise be compensated for." With digital content this is just not the case. The original file still exists. You not paying for a movie you download does not deprive the license-holder of an opportunity to offer that download to somebody else. Only the opportunity to sell it to you, one they wouldn't have had in the first place because of [your stance on draconian DRM, high prices for streaming, needing multiple different services instead of a single stop, etc]. What did they lose?

sjy 7y ago
It’s a big assumption that you wouldn’t have purchased the product anyway. Sure, it’s often true, but there are clearly many people who dislike DRM and subscription fees who would nonetheless accept them if the alternative was to forego copyrighted entertainment altogether. The loss of the opportunity to sell to ‘you’ is not negligible.
- kelnos 7y ago
  Not sure why you're being downvoted. It's certainly true that while there are many people who would not pay for the content at any price, there are also many people who would stop pirating and instead pay, if they got the right price, format, terms, etc.
  - LeoNatan25 7y ago
    But that's not what the parent is saying. They are saying that if piracy stopped dead cold, almost all pirates would just go and buy the content they were pirating. That's categorically not true, or at least not 100% true. People would probably buy stuff, but at a rate so low, the industry would be hard-pressed to notice the difference.
    - acdha 7y ago
      They didn’t say “almost all”, only that there were many people who would. That seems highly plausible given how many millions of people have pirated content: no, it wouldn’t be everyone buying everything they’ve downloaded but even a modest percentage would be a noticeable increase in sales. There’s a widely accepted claim that Netflix entering a market correlated with piracy going down because many people are looking for something to watch at a reasonable price. The person who is looking for, say, the latest release or determined not to support certain large media companies is probably still going to hoist the Jolly Roger but that’s far from everyone.
      - LeoNatan25 7y ago
        Yes, there are always people on the edges of the spectrum. But most people who can afford it, will prefer to pay some price for the most amount of content. For a time, that service was Netflix, but it is no longer the case (not necessarily Netflix' fault).

kempbellt 7y ago

>You don't have an entitlement to consume specific content. If it's on the internet and you can access it, yes you do. It's like arguing that if you watch a concert through the fence, rather than paying to get in, you're stealing from the musicians. This "theft" argument is old.

diminoten 7y ago
You couldn't be more wrong. You do not have an entitlement to intellectual property, our entire society is built on top of that concept. It's more like you're saying you get to use any logos you want because you can download the images for them on their website. The only reason you can listen to a concert outside of the venue is because there's no way to stop you that's also in any way proportionate to the crime. Edit: I'm rate limited so here's a clarification. My point is that just because it's available doesn't mean you ought to have access to it. You do, no arguments there, but should you? No. You are not entitled to that media by virtue of the fact that it is available to you, much like you are not entitled to the contents of someone's home just because their door is unlocked. You're not satan if you download a TV show, but I hate it when people try to rationalize that behavior with a moral argument.
- LeoNatan25 7y ago
  > The only reason you can listen to a concert outside of the venue is because there's no way to stop you that's also in any way proportionate to the crime. As is stopping people from pirating. Where there is will, there is a way. The promise of Netflix was that virtually all content (or at least a very large percentage of it) would be there, under one subscription, at optimal quality. And convenience. As years have gone by, that promise is nothing but a husk (not necessarily by Netflix' wrong doing).
  - diminoten 7y ago
    I agree, I don't think the individual pirates are ever going to be in any real trouble. HOWEVER, while it's impossible to find every person who improperly listened to a concert without paying for a ticket, it is not impossible to find every person who improperly obtained a video file for content they haven't paid for. Just something to keep in mind as we talk about this; you can actually find the people who did it, and there's actual (digital) evidence, if the government ever decides to change its mind on the issue. Let me be clear; I don't give a shit if someone pirates digital media. But I do think it's a personal failing of mine that I don't care. I do, in principle, believe in the concept of intellectual property, and I do, in principle, believe someone who owns an idea can decide to only give it to people who have paid. However, on a purely practical level, I cast no judgement towards anyone who violates that belief, even though I do understand that it does cause real, tangible harm.

paxys 7y ago

There are valid arguments for whether it is right nor wrong, but it is most certainly not "theft". Call it copyright infringement or piracy or whatever else.

steveeq1 7y ago
https://torrentfreak.com/images/piracy-is-not-theft.png https://torrentfreak.com/images/piracy-is-not-theft.png
- LeoNatan25 7y ago
  You should post the full image: https://i.imgur.com/FPoJnH3.png https://i.imgur.com/FPoJnH3.png ;-) Arr matey BTW—I never thought that I would still find use of these things from early 2000s. Going into the 2010s, it looked so promising. But they couldn't have a good thing going.
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    Copyright infringement doesn't change whether you charge for the copies or not. No authorization === infringement. Fair use privileges never let you reproduce and distribute an entire work for casual consumption.
    - LeoNatan25 7y ago
      The only difference is there are stricter rules for gross copyright infringement.
    - beatgammit 7y ago
      But torrents don't distribute the entire work, they distribute fragments of a work with instructions on how to reassemble them. ;) That being said, the point here isn't to argue that file sharing is ok, the point is that making something harder to consume legally than illegally is a recipe for failure. Media companies try to maintain maximum control over their content and are surprised when people innovate ways to distribute it more simply? I just want to have a file (preferably legal) on my computer that I can watch whenever I want with whatever software that I want. I would probably cancel my Netflix subscription and spend more total buying content if that purchase option was available. I would rent far more movies and TV shows if they were more reasonably priced ($1-2 per movie, $0.50 per TV episode or something), probably spending more in total if they were available DRM-free (as in, just an MP4 stream from some CDN). I don't want to steal stuff, I just want to consume media in a convenient, DRM-free way. I don't want to steal stuff, but I absolutely don't want to be locked in to a content provider.

LeoNatan25 7y ago

Sort your legal definitions. Copyright infringement is not theft.

my_usernam3 7y ago
"You wouldn't download a car"
- LeoNatan25 7y ago
  Would if I could. Still not theft. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - archi42 7y ago
    What a glorious world that would be... I'd absolutely upload you a car, if you upload me a good drink. Or maybe we can put a FOSS car on GitHub?
    - LeoNatan25 7y ago
      I'm sure once such a project becomes technologically feasible, FOSS designs will happen.
- OJFord 7y ago
  I would if you uploaded the .stl
friedman23 7y ago
Why do you think this matters?
- buzzerbetrayed 7y ago
  Why does using the proper definition of words matter? I think that should be fairly obvious. "Downloading copyrighted music is murder." Ok, then downloading copyrighted music should be punished like murder. Oh, it isn't Murder? Well, it also isn't theft. So it shouldn't be punished like it is theft or treated like it is theft in conversation. It should be punished like and treated as copyright infringement, which it is.

tenebrisalietum 7y ago

I mean most of this in a devil's-advocate sense: The proper economic arrangement for those who wish to make a living with creative works is patronage. Someone asks you to make something, you make it for them, then you get paid. You then don't get paid until you make another work. Thus content creators shouldn't have an automatic entitlement to get paid each time someone reads/listens to/watches a work. If you work once, it's only fair for you to get paid once. The idea of royalties that pay beyond the initial act of creation is unfair because you should not get paid to do nothing. Copyright is meant to be temporary scheme to encourage creative works. It is not meant to establish ownership over non-physical goods like music, art, etc. though it is definitely currently abused to be that way. I guess at some point in history we needed copyright to encourage more creativity, but honestly look around you - we are saturated with so much intellectual property. So many movies, software UIs, rehashes of rehashes. Does society really need/benefit from the incentive of copyright/royalty any longer? It seems only entrenched legacies are significantly benefiting currently.

AVTizzle 7y ago
This doesn't make economic sense. If I create a piece of art that many people can enjoy, why shouldn't I get compensated for adding that value to their lives? Same is true for software.
- tenebrisalietum 7y ago
  Expecting endless (or effectively endless) compensation, or any compensation you demand unilaterally, for adding value once, seems abusive.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    The correct solution is to fix copyright terms to 10 or 20 years, and the problems fix themselves.
tashi 7y ago
Similarly, the proper economic arrangement for those who wish to consume art is patronage. If you want to view someone's creative work, you must hire them, come to an agreement about the subject to be depicted and materials to be used, and commit to paying the full amount upon delivery. The idea of reproduction of artistic works from all over the world and from any time in the past? It makes everything too complicated to analyze in terms of what's fair!

AYBABTME 7y ago

If I pay for streaming service Z but don't like their streaming tech or the geofraphical restrictions they put on show Y that I was watching while traveling, I feel that there's no ethical harm happening if I obtain a copy of Y for private storage. It might not be legal or might be in violation of ToS, but personally I wouldn't call this theft. Would you agree?

tomnipotent 7y ago
> no ethical harm According to whom? If region enforcement is in place, it's because of legal obligations. So yes, there's ethical harm involved when you do something like this because you're intentionally circumventing a business's legal obligations to their partners.
- spookthesunset 7y ago
  One thing in ethics you might ask is “if everybody did it, what would happen”? If everybody pirated their videos, maybe media companies would get a clue and make a better product. Nobody pirates music anymore—it is much easier to just pay a small amount to Spotify and the like and get access to almost any song you’d want on basically all your devices. If anything, perhaps it is more ethical to hard pirate video than it is to let media companies shoot them selves in the foot...
  - tomnipotent 7y ago
    > “if everybody did it, what would happen”? People would stop producing content because there's no money in it. So yeah, it's harmful.
    - AYBABTME 7y ago
      People wouldn't stop producing content because regional restrictions became something that customers don't want to pay for anymore. Any entity that refuses to change those restrictions would leave the market open for another entity who's willing to do business without imposing these terms. The demand for the fundamental content would remain and if some suppliers are unwilling to provide for the demand, other suppliers would arise.

jammygit 7y ago

I don’t think theft is a legitimate term to use. We need a new one for “used without permission”

beatgammit 7y ago
Well, we have trespassing and copyright infringement. Neither of those have the emotional baggage as theft, so the movie industry uses the term for maximum effect.

wolco 7y ago

If I buy the theft term. Is all theft wrong? Is theft wrong in this case?