6 ms·

We frequently criminalize acts that factually result in no harms in specific, individual cases, but can be assumed to be harmful if carried out universally. Sh

We frequently criminalize acts that factually result in no harms in specific, individual cases, but can be assumed to be harmful if carried out universally. Should we not punish people who drive at excess speed on empty roads, or embezzlers who steal money but later return it, or drug dealers who sell only to moderate users?

mozman 4y ago
> Should we not punish people who drive at excess speed on empty roads, or embezzlers who steal money but later return it, or drug dealers who sell only to moderate users? IMO: No.
- carewell 4y ago
  (sorry, posted this comment in the wrong thread by accident) Do you think at least some of the content that was shared would have been purchased otherwise? We can't measure the impact directly but it's odd to assume that pirating content somehow does not affect the wellbeing of creators and other participants of the market. I can say anecdotally with 100% confidence that when I can't easily find a freely available copy of a movie to watch online I pay for it.
  - CommitSyn 4y ago
    Why do you search out pirated content when you can pay for it? Since I'm an adult with a decent paying job now, I pay for everything I can afford. I don't think I've pirated a program or movie in 5 years now.
    - carewell 4y ago
      That's a completely different question, of course. But to answer: on many occasions I am not committed to a particular movie, so just watch it in the background for a while and might end up not finishing. Sometimes I don't want to deal with different services or even a subscription required to watch a single movie/show legally (Paramount+ on Amazon or a Netflix show). Again, if I have to I will pay, but the convenience of free movie websites is great. There are probably other reasons but I would be really surprised if my behavior was an exception. I can pay for movies but it's more convenient not to (sometimes).
    - asdff 4y ago
      I'm against a $3.99 digital rental out of principal
    - indemnity 4y ago
      When you live outside the USA? Some content you cannot get for any amount of money due to syndication deals, and providers like HBO have spotty availability. I already pay for Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+ and Apple TV+, but their content libraries are smaller outside the US by some margin. I pirate HBO and other services since there is no legal pathway to stream it where I live, and I’m not forking out to get it from whichever shitty local service bought the rights. Happy to pay once they actually offer it worldwide as a first party option!
  - realusername 4y ago
    The answer to that is pretty clear, there's never been a single research paper which manage to demonstrate a monetary loss.
    - carewell 4y ago
      I don't have a link to a scientific paper. But if you want to sum the losses yourself, here is something to start with: 1. Last Sunday I streamed a movie called Stutz (2022) for free instead of purchasing it from Netflix. That's a loss of $16 for the industry (1 month subscription, but I am not interested in anything else from their catalog).
      - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
        This example is a good demonstration of my point: when the copyrighted digital work is not made artificially scarce, it is worthless. Prior to digital copying, that scarcity was not artificial; it actually cost people money to copy and distribute things and those people more often than not were trying to see what they copied. Someone was distributing that movie for free because the movie did not have value in a market.
        carewell 4y ago
        > when the copyrighted digital work is not made artificially scarce, it is worthless. If an artist digitally releases a music album for free - it's worthless? Meaning it has no value? Let's break this down. If I construct a physical object and sell it - it has worth because you can hold it in your hands. If I record an album and release it digitally - it's worthless, despite costing me 100x more than the physical object I created. And despite you appreciating the music 100x more than my physical object. So what defines value? Then physical aspect only? I guess that's a theory, doesn't help to navigate the world increasingly dominated by intangible things, but okay.
        lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
        > If an artist digitally releases a music album for free - it's worthless? That is my intended meaning, though it doesn't need to be released for free, only digitally. If the album is a series of mp3 files in a zip archive why would one pay for it when they could just get a perfect copy from their friend (who got it from a friend, who got it from a friend, who got it ...)? I do know the answer to this question: kindness (Patreon and similar). I don't know market forces to be particularly kind, however.
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
That's an interesting point but I would personally disagree with the premise that the behavior in the headline is harmful if carried out universally[0]. Digital media to some extent, and the public internet to a greater extent, broke copyright. To your point, it makes sense to prevent someone from trying to start a business using a bunch of stolen creative work, but this person's behavior was not to seek profit. Anyway, those first two examples are very good to demonstrate your point (I don't want to get into it because it's off-topic but I don't think the drug dealer example works as well as the other two). I do find myself thinking that punishment is still deserved in those cases for exactly the reason you suggest. [0] Specifically talking about the sharing of data, not how the data was initially acquired to be shared ("hacked" Netflix employee credentials). This person is not being prosecuted for how the data was initially copied, only for continuing to copy it.
- NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
  In common law systems, there is often a differentiation between actions that are only crimes if there's a particular harm, and one where that requirement doesn't hold ... the former are "result crimes" and the latter "conduct crimes". e.g. in English law, the offense of "indecent exposure" (i.e. showing your genitals in public) used to require that this cause "obstruction, annoyance or danger" to at least one person - it was a result crime. The law was subsequently changed because I guess they decided it wasn't really necessary to have the prosecution carry the burden of proof on that; so it became a conduct crime.
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
    This distinction is not something I'd heard of before, so thanks for the explanation. It seems to me that I fundamentally disagree with this idea of a conduct crime. Prosecutors should be expected to prove the harm that was caused by the actions for which a person is having criminal charges pressed against them. (I don't know of anything like this in American law; per my understanding, if you do the thing that's written down as not to do, you did bad.) If it's expected that it will be obvious what the harm is, then it can be expected that proving it (or convincing a judge of it) will be easy. Anyway, maybe I'll be able to come up with a counter example but I'm coming up blank currently.

mozman 4y ago

> Should we not punish people who drive at excess speed on empty roads, or embezzlers who steal money but later return it, or drug dealers who sell only to moderate users? IMO: No.

carewell 4y ago
(sorry, posted this comment in the wrong thread by accident) Do you think at least some of the content that was shared would have been purchased otherwise? We can't measure the impact directly but it's odd to assume that pirating content somehow does not affect the wellbeing of creators and other participants of the market. I can say anecdotally with 100% confidence that when I can't easily find a freely available copy of a movie to watch online I pay for it.
- CommitSyn 4y ago
  Why do you search out pirated content when you can pay for it? Since I'm an adult with a decent paying job now, I pay for everything I can afford. I don't think I've pirated a program or movie in 5 years now.
  - carewell 4y ago
    That's a completely different question, of course. But to answer: on many occasions I am not committed to a particular movie, so just watch it in the background for a while and might end up not finishing. Sometimes I don't want to deal with different services or even a subscription required to watch a single movie/show legally (Paramount+ on Amazon or a Netflix show). Again, if I have to I will pay, but the convenience of free movie websites is great. There are probably other reasons but I would be really surprised if my behavior was an exception. I can pay for movies but it's more convenient not to (sometimes).
  - asdff 4y ago
    I'm against a $3.99 digital rental out of principal
  - indemnity 4y ago
    When you live outside the USA? Some content you cannot get for any amount of money due to syndication deals, and providers like HBO have spotty availability. I already pay for Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+ and Apple TV+, but their content libraries are smaller outside the US by some margin. I pirate HBO and other services since there is no legal pathway to stream it where I live, and I’m not forking out to get it from whichever shitty local service bought the rights. Happy to pay once they actually offer it worldwide as a first party option!
- realusername 4y ago
  The answer to that is pretty clear, there's never been a single research paper which manage to demonstrate a monetary loss.
  - carewell 4y ago
    I don't have a link to a scientific paper. But if you want to sum the losses yourself, here is something to start with: 1. Last Sunday I streamed a movie called Stutz (2022) for free instead of purchasing it from Netflix. That's a loss of $16 for the industry (1 month subscription, but I am not interested in anything else from their catalog).
    - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
      This example is a good demonstration of my point: when the copyrighted digital work is not made artificially scarce, it is worthless. Prior to digital copying, that scarcity was not artificial; it actually cost people money to copy and distribute things and those people more often than not were trying to see what they copied. Someone was distributing that movie for free because the movie did not have value in a market.
      - carewell 4y ago
        > when the copyrighted digital work is not made artificially scarce, it is worthless. If an artist digitally releases a music album for free - it's worthless? Meaning it has no value? Let's break this down. If I construct a physical object and sell it - it has worth because you can hold it in your hands. If I record an album and release it digitally - it's worthless, despite costing me 100x more than the physical object I created. And despite you appreciating the music 100x more than my physical object. So what defines value? Then physical aspect only? I guess that's a theory, doesn't help to navigate the world increasingly dominated by intangible things, but okay.
        lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
        > If an artist digitally releases a music album for free - it's worthless? That is my intended meaning, though it doesn't need to be released for free, only digitally. If the album is a series of mp3 files in a zip archive why would one pay for it when they could just get a perfect copy from their friend (who got it from a friend, who got it from a friend, who got it ...)? I do know the answer to this question: kindness (Patreon and similar). I don't know market forces to be particularly kind, however.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago

That's an interesting point but I would personally disagree with the premise that the behavior in the headline is harmful if carried out universally[0]. Digital media to some extent, and the public internet to a greater extent, broke copyright. To your point, it makes sense to prevent someone from trying to start a business using a bunch of stolen creative work, but this person's behavior was not to seek profit. Anyway, those first two examples are very good to demonstrate your point (I don't want to get into it because it's off-topic but I don't think the drug dealer example works as well as the other two). I do find myself thinking that punishment is still deserved in those cases for exactly the reason you suggest. [0] Specifically talking about the sharing of data, not how the data was initially acquired to be shared ("hacked" Netflix employee credentials). This person is not being prosecuted for how the data was initially copied, only for continuing to copy it.

NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
In common law systems, there is often a differentiation between actions that are only crimes if there's a particular harm, and one where that requirement doesn't hold ... the former are "result crimes" and the latter "conduct crimes". e.g. in English law, the offense of "indecent exposure" (i.e. showing your genitals in public) used to require that this cause "obstruction, annoyance or danger" to at least one person - it was a result crime. The law was subsequently changed because I guess they decided it wasn't really necessary to have the prosecution carry the burden of proof on that; so it became a conduct crime.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
  This distinction is not something I'd heard of before, so thanks for the explanation. It seems to me that I fundamentally disagree with this idea of a conduct crime. Prosecutors should be expected to prove the harm that was caused by the actions for which a person is having criminal charges pressed against them. (I don't know of anything like this in American law; per my understanding, if you do the thing that's written down as not to do, you did bad.) If it's expected that it will be obvious what the harm is, then it can be expected that proving it (or convincing a judge of it) will be easy. Anyway, maybe I'll be able to come up with a counter example but I'm coming up blank currently.