5 ms·

Steal verb 1: to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice Yes, piracy is stealing according to the dictionary,

by Joeri 5y ago

Steal verb 1: to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice Yes, piracy is stealing according to the dictionary, especially if done habitually. That the owner is left with a copy of the work is immaterial to the act of theft.

ipaddr 5y ago
You are stealing my content by viewing this.
bhaney 5y ago
Oh, are we doing argument by dictionary now? Here's another one then: Take verb 1: remove (someone or something) from a particular place. Piracy doesn't remove something from a particular place, so it is not taking, so it is not stealing. You know, "according to the dictionary" (My point here is to show that quoting dictionary definitions to resolve technicalities is a worthless argument. I don't actually care whether or not piracy is classified as theft)
robbedpeter 5y ago
It's not taken. It's copied. Digital piracy is not theft. It's unauthorized copying. It would be taking and theft if you deprived the owner of their content while copying it for yourself. Like stealing money with wire transfers. This isn't just semantics, it's important to not conflate theft and piracy. They're almost completely different, except in both cases the offender obtains something they didn't originally possess. "You wouldn't steal a car" is mafiaa newspeak intended to maintain control of rents.
- Stunting 5y ago
  it's theft of the income of the workforce required to make movies. Whole departments receive residuals based on the post box office sales and that income is required to ensure that it is a viable career. That enables talented and safe people to continue making entertainment which in turn provides a better product.
  - robbedpeter 5y ago
    No, it's not. If I pay for a movie, but I then download it from The Pirate Bay, it's still piracy, but nobody loses anything. I recently went over my media collection and did some conservative guesstimation of my spending over the last 20 years. I've paid over 6 figures to consume various sorts of media. I have absolutely zero moral or ethical qualms with downloading and/or pirating content I've already paid for. I don't give a flying fuck if the copyright holder doesn't like the means by which I get the content. The studios and copyright lobby and mafiaa are not good faith operators. Piracy is not theft. Sometimes it's ethical and justified. I WANT to pay. I want to give a streaming service money to curate, deliver, and maintain a library of high quality content. The industry doesn't want that to be possible, because it interferes with the bad-faith rentseeking games played with royalties and residuals. I'm done playing pretend, and will happily Pirate even new content I haven't paid for. I will pay when there's the opportunity for good faith commerce. I'll buy discs and files directly where possible.
    - Stunting 5y ago
      In your example, getting a third party to provide a digital copy of a good you already own is not theft. I would argue it's a lousy way of doing things, opening you up to many more problems, but it's not theft. Taking a good or service that you don't own is stealing. That's piracy. That's theft.
nescioquid 5y ago
I sort of think piracy in this context is actually distributing some media, e.g. a movie, without holding the copyright or a license from the copyright holder to do so. You will argue that this may deprive the copyright holder of some rent if the media is for sale, but that sounds qualitatively different than taking or stealing.

by Joeri 5y ago

ipaddr 5y ago

You are stealing my content by viewing this.

bhaney 5y ago

Oh, are we doing argument by dictionary now? Here's another one then: Take verb 1: remove (someone or something) from a particular place. Piracy doesn't remove something from a particular place, so it is not taking, so it is not stealing. You know, "according to the dictionary" (My point here is to show that quoting dictionary definitions to resolve technicalities is a worthless argument. I don't actually care whether or not piracy is classified as theft)

robbedpeter 5y ago

It's not taken. It's copied. Digital piracy is not theft. It's unauthorized copying. It would be taking and theft if you deprived the owner of their content while copying it for yourself. Like stealing money with wire transfers. This isn't just semantics, it's important to not conflate theft and piracy. They're almost completely different, except in both cases the offender obtains something they didn't originally possess. "You wouldn't steal a car" is mafiaa newspeak intended to maintain control of rents.

Stunting 5y ago
it's theft of the income of the workforce required to make movies. Whole departments receive residuals based on the post box office sales and that income is required to ensure that it is a viable career. That enables talented and safe people to continue making entertainment which in turn provides a better product.
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  No, it's not. If I pay for a movie, but I then download it from The Pirate Bay, it's still piracy, but nobody loses anything. I recently went over my media collection and did some conservative guesstimation of my spending over the last 20 years. I've paid over 6 figures to consume various sorts of media. I have absolutely zero moral or ethical qualms with downloading and/or pirating content I've already paid for. I don't give a flying fuck if the copyright holder doesn't like the means by which I get the content. The studios and copyright lobby and mafiaa are not good faith operators. Piracy is not theft. Sometimes it's ethical and justified. I WANT to pay. I want to give a streaming service money to curate, deliver, and maintain a library of high quality content. The industry doesn't want that to be possible, because it interferes with the bad-faith rentseeking games played with royalties and residuals. I'm done playing pretend, and will happily Pirate even new content I haven't paid for. I will pay when there's the opportunity for good faith commerce. I'll buy discs and files directly where possible.
  - Stunting 5y ago
    In your example, getting a third party to provide a digital copy of a good you already own is not theft. I would argue it's a lousy way of doing things, opening you up to many more problems, but it's not theft. Taking a good or service that you don't own is stealing. That's piracy. That's theft.

nescioquid 5y ago

I sort of think piracy in this context is actually distributing some media, e.g. a movie, without holding the copyright or a license from the copyright holder to do so. You will argue that this may deprive the copyright holder of some rent if the media is for sale, but that sounds qualitatively different than taking or stealing.