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It's not an elaborate definition. From the first line of Wikipedia's article on theft: "In common usage, theft is the taking of another person's property or se

It's not an elaborate definition. From the first line of Wikipedia's article on theft: "In common usage, theft is the taking of another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it." From Dictionary.com: "the act of stealing; the wrongful taking and carrying away of the personal goods or property of another; larceny.' It's you and others who have to torture these definitions to begin using a term like "design theft," which very clearly doesn't involve depriving the owner of property or carrying anything away, and is obviously just copying instead. If you have a counterargument to this, I haven't seen it yet, nor do I understand what it is. Why should we redefine copying as theft? It honestly just seems like propaganda to me. I'm making my points in good faith here. > your use of "commodities" and "commodification" to suggest outright copies of existing goods are good for consumers. I'm not trying to equate commoditization with copying. Rather, what I'm saying is that the entire process of commoditization is driven by people creating copies of other goods, or at least extremely similar versions. That's how it works. How else would commoditization happen, exactly? Amazon is threatening to turn Allbirds' unique design into an entire category, and Allbirds doesn't like it: https://image.businessinsider.com/5d83c7862e22af39354ac018?width=2500&format=jpeg&auto=webp https://image.businessinsider.com/5d83c7862e22af39354ac018?w... But this is run of the mill for innovation. We've all seen other categories of shoes where the designs are extremely similar. If you do something new, others will build off of it, and while that may be a challenge for you, it is a very good thing for consumers.

KirinDave 7y ago
> It's you and others who have to torture these definitions to begin using a term like "design theft," which very clearly doesn't involve depriving the owner of property or carrying anything away, and is obviously just copying instead. So you're saying if I rob your bank account it's not theft because it's not a physical good. Okay. > Amazon is threatening to turn Allbirds' unique design into an entire category, and Allbirds doesn't like it. I am convinced you're misrepresenting what Amazon is doing. I've been trying to avoid that conclusion, but I can't avoid it any longer. Wool shoes aren't new. There are vendors before now. What is new is Allbird's specific look and minimally branded aesthetic. That is what Amazon is abusing. > If you do something new, others will build off of it, and while that may be a challenge for you, it is a very good thing for consumers. Let's destroy capitalism together to make this more likely to be true.
- csallen 7y ago
  > So you're saying if I rob your bank account it's not theft because it's not a physical good. Okay. It's not about the physicality of the good. It's about it being rivalrous. If you take my money, I no longer have my money. You're not copying it. You're literally taking it away. Hence it's theft. I know you're more than intelligent enough to understand this concept if you try. > I am convinced you're misrepresenting what Amazon is doing. I've been trying to avoid that conclusion, but I can't avoid it any longer. Wool shoes aren't new. There are vendors before now. What is new is Allbird's specific look and minimally branded aesthetic. That is what Amazon is abusing. Okay sure, but that doesn't change anything about my argument. Allbirds' look is being commoditized, and perhaps in the future there will be an entire category of minimally-branded wool shoes, just like today we have entire categories of similar-looking shoes like wingtips. > Let's destroy capitalism together to make this more likely to be true. I don't understand what you're saying here.
  - KirinDave 7y ago
    > It's not about the physicality of the good. It's about it being rivalrous. If you take my money, I no longer have my money But that's not true in the case of a bank account. Its insured. And often times you dont even get to see that the bank lost money, because of how banks are structured internally. And even if the bank can't insure it's the government can just print more money (and frequently does, without substantially impacting the value of the currencily). So me robbing your bank account isn't immoral, by your logic. It seems to me like there is a hole in your metaphorical boat here if it allows such an obviously immoral action to be considered. At some point you need to admit that reducing the potential value of someone else's work or property or depriving them of a livelihood in some fashion is some sort of theft. Otherwise you're just begging people to produce a series of trivial and obvious examples showing these kinds of obvious contradictions. > Okay sure, but that doesn't change anything about my argument. Allbirds' look is being commoditized, and perhaps in the future there will be an entire category of minimally-branded wool shoes, just like today we have entire categories of similar-looking shoes like wingtips. There already is this market. Tom's did it before and there are plenty of other examples. Amazon's specifically copying one vendor and then using their horizontal integration to hide the fact that Allbirds even exists. That's not a commoditized good no matter how much you want to try and repeat the phrase.

KirinDave 7y ago

> It's you and others who have to torture these definitions to begin using a term like "design theft," which very clearly doesn't involve depriving the owner of property or carrying anything away, and is obviously just copying instead. So you're saying if I rob your bank account it's not theft because it's not a physical good. Okay. > Amazon is threatening to turn Allbirds' unique design into an entire category, and Allbirds doesn't like it. I am convinced you're misrepresenting what Amazon is doing. I've been trying to avoid that conclusion, but I can't avoid it any longer. Wool shoes aren't new. There are vendors before now. What is new is Allbird's specific look and minimally branded aesthetic. That is what Amazon is abusing. > If you do something new, others will build off of it, and while that may be a challenge for you, it is a very good thing for consumers. Let's destroy capitalism together to make this more likely to be true.

csallen 7y ago
> So you're saying if I rob your bank account it's not theft because it's not a physical good. Okay. It's not about the physicality of the good. It's about it being rivalrous. If you take my money, I no longer have my money. You're not copying it. You're literally taking it away. Hence it's theft. I know you're more than intelligent enough to understand this concept if you try. > I am convinced you're misrepresenting what Amazon is doing. I've been trying to avoid that conclusion, but I can't avoid it any longer. Wool shoes aren't new. There are vendors before now. What is new is Allbird's specific look and minimally branded aesthetic. That is what Amazon is abusing. Okay sure, but that doesn't change anything about my argument. Allbirds' look is being commoditized, and perhaps in the future there will be an entire category of minimally-branded wool shoes, just like today we have entire categories of similar-looking shoes like wingtips. > Let's destroy capitalism together to make this more likely to be true. I don't understand what you're saying here.
- KirinDave 7y ago
  > It's not about the physicality of the good. It's about it being rivalrous. If you take my money, I no longer have my money But that's not true in the case of a bank account. Its insured. And often times you dont even get to see that the bank lost money, because of how banks are structured internally. And even if the bank can't insure it's the government can just print more money (and frequently does, without substantially impacting the value of the currencily). So me robbing your bank account isn't immoral, by your logic. It seems to me like there is a hole in your metaphorical boat here if it allows such an obviously immoral action to be considered. At some point you need to admit that reducing the potential value of someone else's work or property or depriving them of a livelihood in some fashion is some sort of theft. Otherwise you're just begging people to produce a series of trivial and obvious examples showing these kinds of obvious contradictions. > Okay sure, but that doesn't change anything about my argument. Allbirds' look is being commoditized, and perhaps in the future there will be an entire category of minimally-branded wool shoes, just like today we have entire categories of similar-looking shoes like wingtips. There already is this market. Tom's did it before and there are plenty of other examples. Amazon's specifically copying one vendor and then using their horizontal integration to hide the fact that Allbirds even exists. That's not a commoditized good no matter how much you want to try and repeat the phrase.