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Of course the author is losing something, someone stole his intellectual property and distributed it for free. It's not your responsibility to put food onto som

Of course the author is losing something, someone stole his intellectual property and distributed it for free. It's not your responsibility to put food onto someone's table, but it is your responsibility not to steal it. Immoral acts do not become moral because they are easy to commit. It’s amazing the lengths people go to justify self serving bullshit. The apologetics in this thread are no different than the ones made 20 years ago for stealing music and software. Indie software only escaped because the sass model made piracy hard. Music is in terrible shape and its only saving grace is that it’s also a performance medium. If piracy makes it so that it doesn’t make much sense to produce novels, it’s the world that’s poorer. Justifying that because it happens or because it’s easy is nothing more than the naturalistic fallacy.

hunter2_ 4y ago
The parallel between SaaS and live music is pretty interesting. Seeing a play in a theater (as the un-pirate-able version of a movie) also fits in this category. Service instead of product, essentially. I'm struggling to extend the analogy to books, though. The mental image of a kindergarten teacher reading a book and holding it up for the class to see the illustrations is a bit weak... perhaps theater serves as the post-movie and post-book medium alike.
- weeksie 4y ago
  Exactly. The form of the novel is tied to text and text is fundamentally east to distribute because it is information. The problem is structurally tough.
xigoi 4y ago
If someone steals your food, you no longer have it. If someone “steals” your book, you still have it.
- weeksie 4y ago
  begging the metaphor is one approach when attempting to defend an indefensible position
  - xigoi 4y ago
    Who said it's a metaphor?
    - weeksie 4y ago
      "Taking food off the table" was a metaphor. Your statement makes even less sense if you weren't referencing that. You're saying, in effect, that zero marginal cost items are not property. That's a radical position that I would be surprised if you actually endorse after you think about it.
      - xigoi 4y ago
        Before the food metaphor, you said, quoting: > someone stole his intellectual property and distributed it for free
  - nephanth 4y ago
    That's not a metaphor. Copyright infringement/ ip violation is not theft. When an item is stolen, you lose it. When your copyright is infringed, you may not even know it happens. A lot of defenders of copyright often liken ip violation to theft. I remember a famous campaign where I'm from saying "piracy is theft". This is misinformation and fallacy. Copyright infringement is not theft, and there is no reason it should be treated as such
    - tzs 4y ago
      > When an item is stolen, you lose it. "Steal" has many meanings and only some of them involve the loss of the thing stolen. The Oxford American Dictionary provides several examples (I'm using "___" to indicate indentation in the following) that illustrate the range of what can be stolen: steal | stēl | verb (past stole | stōl | ; past participle stolen | ˈstōlən | ) 1 [with object] take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it: thieves stole her bicycle | (as adjective stolen) : stolen goods | [no object] : she was found guilty of stealing from her employers. • dishonestly pass off (another person's ideas) as one's own: accusations that one group had stolen ideas from the other were soon flying. • take the opportunity to give or share (a kiss) when it is not expected or when people are not watching: he was allowed to steal a kiss in the darkness. • (in various sports) gain (an advantage, a run, or possession of the ball) unexpectedly or by exploiting the temporary distraction of an opponent. • Baseball (of a base runner) advance safely to (the next base) by running to it as the pitcher begins the delivery: Rickey stole third base. 2 [no object, with adverbial of direction] move somewhere quietly or surreptitiously: he stole down to the kitchen | figurative : a delicious languor was stealing over her. • [with object and adverbial of direction] direct (a look) quickly and unobtrusively: he stole a furtive glance at her. noun [in singular] 1 informal a bargain: for $5 it was a steal. 2 mainly North American an act of stealing something: New York's biggest art steal. • an idea taken from another work: the chorus is a steal from The Smiths' “London”. • Baseball an act of stealing a base. • Basketball & Hockey an act of taking possession of the ball or puck from an opponent: point guard Kaleb Joseph finished with eight points, four steals, and seven assists. PHRASES steal someone blind ___informal see blind. steal a march on ___gain an advantage over (someone) by acting before they do: stores that open on Sunday are stealing a march on their competitors. steal someone's heart ___win someone's love. steal the show ___attract the most attention and praise. steal someone's thunder ___win praise for oneself by preempting someone else's attempt to impress. [from an exclamation by the English dramatist John Dennis (1657–1734), who invented a method of simulating the sound of thunder as a theatrical sound effect and used it in an unsuccessful play. Shortly after his play came to the end of its short run he heard his new thunder effects used at a performance of Macbeth, whereupon he is said to have exclaimed: ‘Damn them! They will not let my play run, but they steal my thunder!’.]
concordDance 4y ago
Copyright infringement is not theft. You can't "steal" "intellectual property" because there's no such thing, it's a misnomer. If you learn that a trillion aliens from andromeda were reading your book right now are you horribly upset and graciously harmed by this blatant copyright infringement? What if they instead land and take all the worlds water? Note the difference between the two scenarios?
- weeksie 4y ago
  lol

hunter2_ 4y ago

The parallel between SaaS and live music is pretty interesting. Seeing a play in a theater (as the un-pirate-able version of a movie) also fits in this category. Service instead of product, essentially. I'm struggling to extend the analogy to books, though. The mental image of a kindergarten teacher reading a book and holding it up for the class to see the illustrations is a bit weak... perhaps theater serves as the post-movie and post-book medium alike.

weeksie 4y ago
Exactly. The form of the novel is tied to text and text is fundamentally east to distribute because it is information. The problem is structurally tough.

xigoi 4y ago

If someone steals your food, you no longer have it. If someone “steals” your book, you still have it.

weeksie 4y ago
begging the metaphor is one approach when attempting to defend an indefensible position
- xigoi 4y ago
  Who said it's a metaphor?
  - weeksie 4y ago
    "Taking food off the table" was a metaphor. Your statement makes even less sense if you weren't referencing that. You're saying, in effect, that zero marginal cost items are not property. That's a radical position that I would be surprised if you actually endorse after you think about it.
    - xigoi 4y ago
      Before the food metaphor, you said, quoting: > someone stole his intellectual property and distributed it for free
- nephanth 4y ago
  That's not a metaphor. Copyright infringement/ ip violation is not theft. When an item is stolen, you lose it. When your copyright is infringed, you may not even know it happens. A lot of defenders of copyright often liken ip violation to theft. I remember a famous campaign where I'm from saying "piracy is theft". This is misinformation and fallacy. Copyright infringement is not theft, and there is no reason it should be treated as such
  - tzs 4y ago
    > When an item is stolen, you lose it. "Steal" has many meanings and only some of them involve the loss of the thing stolen. The Oxford American Dictionary provides several examples (I'm using "___" to indicate indentation in the following) that illustrate the range of what can be stolen: steal | stēl | verb (past stole | stōl | ; past participle stolen | ˈstōlən | ) 1 [with object] take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it: thieves stole her bicycle | (as adjective stolen) : stolen goods | [no object] : she was found guilty of stealing from her employers. • dishonestly pass off (another person's ideas) as one's own: accusations that one group had stolen ideas from the other were soon flying. • take the opportunity to give or share (a kiss) when it is not expected or when people are not watching: he was allowed to steal a kiss in the darkness. • (in various sports) gain (an advantage, a run, or possession of the ball) unexpectedly or by exploiting the temporary distraction of an opponent. • Baseball (of a base runner) advance safely to (the next base) by running to it as the pitcher begins the delivery: Rickey stole third base. 2 [no object, with adverbial of direction] move somewhere quietly or surreptitiously: he stole down to the kitchen | figurative : a delicious languor was stealing over her. • [with object and adverbial of direction] direct (a look) quickly and unobtrusively: he stole a furtive glance at her. noun [in singular] 1 informal a bargain: for $5 it was a steal. 2 mainly North American an act of stealing something: New York's biggest art steal. • an idea taken from another work: the chorus is a steal from The Smiths' “London”. • Baseball an act of stealing a base. • Basketball & Hockey an act of taking possession of the ball or puck from an opponent: point guard Kaleb Joseph finished with eight points, four steals, and seven assists. PHRASES steal someone blind ___informal see blind. steal a march on ___gain an advantage over (someone) by acting before they do: stores that open on Sunday are stealing a march on their competitors. steal someone's heart ___win someone's love. steal the show ___attract the most attention and praise. steal someone's thunder ___win praise for oneself by preempting someone else's attempt to impress. [from an exclamation by the English dramatist John Dennis (1657–1734), who invented a method of simulating the sound of thunder as a theatrical sound effect and used it in an unsuccessful play. Shortly after his play came to the end of its short run he heard his new thunder effects used at a performance of Macbeth, whereupon he is said to have exclaimed: ‘Damn them! They will not let my play run, but they steal my thunder!’.]

concordDance 4y ago

Copyright infringement is not theft. You can't "steal" "intellectual property" because there's no such thing, it's a misnomer. If you learn that a trillion aliens from andromeda were reading your book right now are you horribly upset and graciously harmed by this blatant copyright infringement? What if they instead land and take all the worlds water? Note the difference between the two scenarios?

weeksie 4y ago
lol