4 ms·

I am made worse off if you steal a copy of my book though. Suppose I sell the book for X dollars and the probability that any person without my book will buy it

I am made worse off if you steal a copy of my book though. Suppose I sell the book for X dollars and the probability that any person without my book will buy it is Y. People who don't have my book have a value to me, specifically, YX dollars. When you steal my book, you directly cost me YX dollars, which is probably an infinitesimal amount, but if everyone was allowed to freely copy the book, then it would be approximately 100% of the money to be made by writing a book. Of course there are complications, like, you might buy it after pirating it, or, you weren't going to buy it anyway, or maybe you'll recommend it to a friend, but I think those considerations should be evaluated by the people with skin in the game - i.e the people who will make or lose money if they get it wrong.

HideousKojima 6y ago
You're assuming that Y is evenly distributed amongst all people, which is absolutely not the case. For example, I did most of my game pirating back in high school, when I didn't have a job (nor a car to get to a job and I lived out in the sticks) and had nothing but an allowance from my parents of ~$20 every month. So the maximum amount I could theoretically spend on games per year? $120. The retail value of all of the different games I pirated annually? Well over $1,000, probably several thousand. So the probability of me paying for any significant portion of the games I pirated was effectively 0
- ALittleLight 6y ago
  I'm not assuming that at all. My model is extremely simplified so it would fit into a comment, but it doesn't need to be that simple for the general idea to hold. Suppose you pirated a thousand games and would've legitimately purchased one. Your piracy then represents a theft of one game. Since there's no way to tell which one game you would've bought, we could simplify it to say that stole one one thousandth of a game from each publisher (assuming they were all unique publishers). In reality, I think it's really hard to know what you would've done without access to piracy. It's almost certainly not "buy all the games" but it's also probably not "buy zero games". I also pirated a lot of things when I was in college - partly because it was cheaper, and I was very cheap, and partly because it was easier than actually getting some things. One thing I try to do is separate my own personal bias (it can't be bad because I did it) from what seems like the clear harm and moral reasoning I laid out above. You're taking from the publishers, even if only small values, and if everyone did what you did, publishing couldn't exist as a business. I think it makes sense that poor people would steal more frequently. They need to. It also makes sense that younger people would steal more frequently - they are less mature, think less about others, and less about the consequences. Given that, it doesn't surprise me that you and I both pirated more while younger. That said, even though it makes sense, that doesn't mean it's right.
  - bawolff 6y ago
    That's a lot of supposing. Suppose instead if piracy wasn't an option the poster just played free games instead, or did something else with their time. > but it's also probably not "buy zero games". In this scenario, the poster may very well not have a credit card (because what's the point if you have no income, also a minor), so it might very we be the case he was physically unable to purchase these games online, especially in the era before online "gift cards" were a thing.
    - ALittleLight 6y ago
      "the maximum amount I could theoretically spend on games per year? $120" For someone who complains about the quantity of my supposing, it's strange that you are supposing counterfactuals explicitly rejected by the OP.
      - bawolff 6y ago
        Max theoretically i can spend (sum of all my income after basic needs met) != max i will spend on video games. In fact, it would be insane to assume that i would spend 100% of my disposible income on one thing.
- Mindwipe 6y ago
  > So the probability of me paying for any significant portion of the games I pirated was effectively 0 It was literally 1 in 10. Which is a very long way from 0%.
  - bawolff 6y ago
    Poster said in theory if he spent all his money he could pay for 10% of the games he pirated. It does not follow that he neccesarily would if piracy was not an option. If i buy something for $0, and then later the cost goes up,it doesn't follow i would automatically buy it at an increased cost even if i can afford it.
  - HideousKojima 6y ago
    I had other things to spend money on besides video games
uluyol 6y ago
No, because potential sales are not sales. You never had the XY dollars to begin with. This is what separates IP theft from physical property theft.
- ALittleLight 6y ago
  I never said they were sales. I explicitly differentiated them from sales. They are potential sales, valued at YX and potential sales are what you lose. A sale has a value of X dollars.
  - basch 6y ago
    That's what makes it not theft. Theft deprives the person of the original. If I have two books and you take one I have one book. If you buy one of my books and give it out, I did not have any of the books I had stolen from me.
    - ALittleLight 6y ago
      Theft does deprive the victim of something. As I've written above, piracy is theft as it deprives the victim of potential sales.
      - bawolff 6y ago
        Depriving someone of a potential sale is a weird definition of theft. Generalizing it seems like it would lead to problematic outcomes. If a critic writes a negative book review, and people do not buy the book as a result, did the reviewer "steal" from the author?
      - missosoup 6y ago
        You can't deprive someone of something they may or may not have had. Copyright infringement is legally not defined as theft for this reason. Where it gets really muddy is whether copyright infringement causes any harm at all. We've had interest groups claiming millions of dollars worth of potential sales lost and we've had studies showing that actually piracy may be a net benefit to creators due to increased market exposure. All of this pontification can be put aside though. China does not enforce copyright or most other IP laws, and yet has a thriving entertainment, engineering, literary, etc. industry. So clearly IP protection is not critical for innovation or a healthy industry, as interest groups here would have us believe.
Thorentis 6y ago
This assumes that ideas can actually be stolen. If you release a creative work into the wild (i.e. publish it), then you have taken the risk that others will photocopy it, write it down word for word on a piece of paper, memorise it, be inspired by it and have a better more profitable idea, etc. Nobody can compel you to release work you've created, but once you release it then you've let it go. Now, our society has decided that in order to give an incentive for people to buy books, we will make it illegal to copy books. That is arbitrary, and purely an economic decision. If I go to a library that holds your book and memorise it, have I stolen it? What if everybody who ever wanted to buy your work decided they'd rather just read it once at a library? Is it stolen? Of course not. When you purchase a book, you are rewarding the publisher for their time and materials in physically producing the book. The author already made their profit when the publisher bought the rights off them. If a publisher wishes to enter into a royalties agreement instead, they do so at their own risk. Society should not protect the royalty system, which I believe is unfair compared to the flat-rate payment anyway. For smaller authors, a publisher will usually work out how many copies they think they can sell, and give the author an amount proportional to that. They then bare the risk of selling less, and are exposed to the opportunity of selling more. The author has received their reward, and the publisher must do their best to sell them.

HideousKojima 6y ago

You're assuming that Y is evenly distributed amongst all people, which is absolutely not the case. For example, I did most of my game pirating back in high school, when I didn't have a job (nor a car to get to a job and I lived out in the sticks) and had nothing but an allowance from my parents of ~$20 every month. So the maximum amount I could theoretically spend on games per year? $120. The retail value of all of the different games I pirated annually? Well over $1,000, probably several thousand. So the probability of me paying for any significant portion of the games I pirated was effectively 0

ALittleLight 6y ago
I'm not assuming that at all. My model is extremely simplified so it would fit into a comment, but it doesn't need to be that simple for the general idea to hold. Suppose you pirated a thousand games and would've legitimately purchased one. Your piracy then represents a theft of one game. Since there's no way to tell which one game you would've bought, we could simplify it to say that stole one one thousandth of a game from each publisher (assuming they were all unique publishers). In reality, I think it's really hard to know what you would've done without access to piracy. It's almost certainly not "buy all the games" but it's also probably not "buy zero games". I also pirated a lot of things when I was in college - partly because it was cheaper, and I was very cheap, and partly because it was easier than actually getting some things. One thing I try to do is separate my own personal bias (it can't be bad because I did it) from what seems like the clear harm and moral reasoning I laid out above. You're taking from the publishers, even if only small values, and if everyone did what you did, publishing couldn't exist as a business. I think it makes sense that poor people would steal more frequently. They need to. It also makes sense that younger people would steal more frequently - they are less mature, think less about others, and less about the consequences. Given that, it doesn't surprise me that you and I both pirated more while younger. That said, even though it makes sense, that doesn't mean it's right.
- bawolff 6y ago
  That's a lot of supposing. Suppose instead if piracy wasn't an option the poster just played free games instead, or did something else with their time. > but it's also probably not "buy zero games". In this scenario, the poster may very well not have a credit card (because what's the point if you have no income, also a minor), so it might very we be the case he was physically unable to purchase these games online, especially in the era before online "gift cards" were a thing.
  - ALittleLight 6y ago
    "the maximum amount I could theoretically spend on games per year? $120" For someone who complains about the quantity of my supposing, it's strange that you are supposing counterfactuals explicitly rejected by the OP.
    - bawolff 6y ago
      Max theoretically i can spend (sum of all my income after basic needs met) != max i will spend on video games. In fact, it would be insane to assume that i would spend 100% of my disposible income on one thing.
Mindwipe 6y ago
> So the probability of me paying for any significant portion of the games I pirated was effectively 0 It was literally 1 in 10. Which is a very long way from 0%.
- bawolff 6y ago
  Poster said in theory if he spent all his money he could pay for 10% of the games he pirated. It does not follow that he neccesarily would if piracy was not an option. If i buy something for $0, and then later the cost goes up,it doesn't follow i would automatically buy it at an increased cost even if i can afford it.
- HideousKojima 6y ago
  I had other things to spend money on besides video games

uluyol 6y ago

No, because potential sales are not sales. You never had the XY dollars to begin with. This is what separates IP theft from physical property theft.

ALittleLight 6y ago
I never said they were sales. I explicitly differentiated them from sales. They are potential sales, valued at YX and potential sales are what you lose. A sale has a value of X dollars.
- basch 6y ago
  That's what makes it not theft. Theft deprives the person of the original. If I have two books and you take one I have one book. If you buy one of my books and give it out, I did not have any of the books I had stolen from me.
  - ALittleLight 6y ago
    Theft does deprive the victim of something. As I've written above, piracy is theft as it deprives the victim of potential sales.
    - bawolff 6y ago
      Depriving someone of a potential sale is a weird definition of theft. Generalizing it seems like it would lead to problematic outcomes. If a critic writes a negative book review, and people do not buy the book as a result, did the reviewer "steal" from the author?
    - missosoup 6y ago
      You can't deprive someone of something they may or may not have had. Copyright infringement is legally not defined as theft for this reason. Where it gets really muddy is whether copyright infringement causes any harm at all. We've had interest groups claiming millions of dollars worth of potential sales lost and we've had studies showing that actually piracy may be a net benefit to creators due to increased market exposure. All of this pontification can be put aside though. China does not enforce copyright or most other IP laws, and yet has a thriving entertainment, engineering, literary, etc. industry. So clearly IP protection is not critical for innovation or a healthy industry, as interest groups here would have us believe.

Thorentis 6y ago

This assumes that ideas can actually be stolen. If you release a creative work into the wild (i.e. publish it), then you have taken the risk that others will photocopy it, write it down word for word on a piece of paper, memorise it, be inspired by it and have a better more profitable idea, etc. Nobody can compel you to release work you've created, but once you release it then you've let it go. Now, our society has decided that in order to give an incentive for people to buy books, we will make it illegal to copy books. That is arbitrary, and purely an economic decision. If I go to a library that holds your book and memorise it, have I stolen it? What if everybody who ever wanted to buy your work decided they'd rather just read it once at a library? Is it stolen? Of course not. When you purchase a book, you are rewarding the publisher for their time and materials in physically producing the book. The author already made their profit when the publisher bought the rights off them. If a publisher wishes to enter into a royalties agreement instead, they do so at their own risk. Society should not protect the royalty system, which I believe is unfair compared to the flat-rate payment anyway. For smaller authors, a publisher will usually work out how many copies they think they can sell, and give the author an amount proportional to that. They then bare the risk of selling less, and are exposed to the opportunity of selling more. The author has received their reward, and the publisher must do their best to sell them.