5 ms·

If they were the same thing, then that would mean downloading a copy of Star Wars is equivalent to pocketing the Star Wars DVD in your entertainment center. Wh

If they were the same thing, then that would mean downloading a copy of Star Wars is equivalent to pocketing the Star Wars DVD in your entertainment center. When does the act of stealing occur? If I download a torrent and then delete it without watching/playing/listening, did I steal it? If so, then does that mean repeatedly copying the file to and from an external hard drive is repeated theft? Does it become stealing only if I make use of the material? If I buy the movie and show it to ten house guests for free, are they thieves? They didn't pay to watch and the author would have preferred it if they did. If they aren't thieves, why would they become thieves if I uploaded ten copies to each friend instead of showing it to them in my living room? Of course, I would be infringing on the author's legal copyright, but I don't see where any stealing can be definitively identified.

jebblue 15y ago
>> When does the act of stealing occur? If I download a torrent and then delete it without watching/playing/listening, did I steal it? Yes, welcome to adulthood.
- ColMustard 15y ago
  No. Adulthood has nothing to do with the fact that everyone is using a word that doesn't accurately describe the action taken. Just because it's not stealing doesn't mean it's not illegal. You can't call anything that's illegal "stealing". It's piracy, which is illegal, but a different act than stealing. People who started calling piracy stealing are the same people that cannot accurately understand what is actually happening, and people who benefit from calling it stealing instead of correctly portraiting it as it's own crime. The desensitized image of piracy that people have is somewhat close to the way some people have a desensitized image of credit card fraud. The image that you're hurting a faceless corporation, and not an actual person. Introducing the moral part in an action that doesn't accurately portray a victim is the hard part. When stealing it's easy because you can relate and imagine the victim of an action.
  - JonWood 15y ago
    I love that you have a problem with people calling copyright infringement "stealing", but no qualms at all about calling it "piracy" instead, which is an entirely different affair. Certainly the last time I downloaded a TV program I did using BitTorrent, rather than boarding the content producer's boat and taking it with force.
    - Karunamon 15y ago
      >I love that you have a problem with people calling copyright infringement "stealing", but no qualms at all about calling it "piracy" instead, which is an entirely different affair. Pirate, verb, sense 3: The unauthorized use or reproduction of another's work - to pirate software Steal, from the dictionary, first and only sense as a verb: Take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it: "thieves stole her bicycle". This is not that difficult to understand.
    - ColMustard 15y ago
      You are aware that the definition of piracy and pirating has been changed since the 1600's I hope? Here's a link: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/piracy http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/piracy
- Anderkent 15y ago
  If I write random bits to a file and it turns out to be a Star Wars movie, did I steal it?
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - zanek 15y ago
    I was thinking the same thing ! I would actually go one step further. How can anyone OWN information (music,movies,software,etc) which is really binary which is really one big ass number (in base 2). How can you OWN a number ? It doesnt make any sense to me, and I'm a software developer that makes products. Its like saying, "I own the file represented by 23445353568893534534565767525454546422223346445646" and you have to pay me use that number. Sounds pretty dumb when you really break down this entire intellectual property issue
    - jebblue 15y ago
      Think of that number as though it were a house, instead of breaking in and stealing its content, you download the whole house, does that make it less significant?
      - zanek 15y ago
        It's not a house, it's an abstract thing. How can you own a number ?
      - Anderkent 15y ago
        Did you lose your house? If not, then I don't see the issue - I saw your house, copied it, now we both have one.
  - demigod 15y ago
    No you didnt if you made up the bits, wrote them, and didnt copy off from a star wars DVD, and in real world once you have written the bits there is no way to know whether you copied it or wrote it by yourself so we compare it with the original and if there is an overbearing similarity then it is considered as piracy or stealing.
joshma 15y ago
It's equivalent in an ethical sense, not equivalent in the legal sense. I think it's perfectly fine to call it stealing, since it embodies the core meaning "steal" is meant to convey. You're depriving another of something that is rightfully theirs, control over their creative content. Let's not get pedantic here, lest we devolve into discussing what "to steal the spotlight" means.
- nazgulnarsil 15y ago
  control over your creative works is not a right, nor should it be.
- vectorpush 15y ago
  It's equivalent in an ethical sense In terms of quantifiable impact, I think there is a clear ethical distinction between flipping bits on a disk and taking possession of material property. You're depriving another of something that is rightfully theirs, control over their creative content. Yes, but "control over creative content" is a nebulous concept that bares only a thin resemblance to things that we can determine are absolutely present (or not present, as in the case of theft) Let's not get pedantic here, lest we devolve into discussing what "to steal the spotlight" means. This is exactly my point. I don't think the difference between "to steal the spotlight" and "to steal a spotlight" is a pedantic distinction.
- reissbaker 15y ago
  "Stealing" generally connotes taking something away from someone else. With piracy, a potential sale is lost: the pirate might have bought the item were it not available illegally for free. With theft, there is both potential sale loss and property loss: if you steal a car from Toyota, they lose the ability to sell the car to you, and they also lose access to the car itself (which prevents them from selling it to anyone else). So Toyota loses twice, whereas the RIAA loses only once. Of course, the ethical difference is probably larger than simply double. To use an old saying, let us assume that: potential sale = a bird in the bush and, access to physical product = a bird in the hand As we know from the ancient algorithm, a bird in the hand = 2 * (a bird in the bush) Piracy loses a potential sale, and theft loses a potential sale and access to a physical product. Therefore, given the following equation: a bird in the bush = x * (a bird in the hand + a bird in the bush) We should be able to solve for x, where x is the amount that piracy is as morally reprehensible as theft. a bird in the bush = x * (2 * a bird in the bush + a bird in the bush) a bird in the bush = x * (3 * a bird in the bush) a bird in the bush / 3 = x * a bird in the bush 1/3 = x As you can see, piracy is clearly 1/3rd as bad as theft. But, I have a feeling that the above algorithm still doesn't sufficiently illustrate the ethical difference between piracy and theft. Let's try again: With piracy, the RIAA has lost the potential sale to the individual pirate. However, they still can sell the same DRMed AAC file to someone else. With our theft example, not only has Toyota lost the ability to sell to the thief: they've also lost the ability to sell that car to anyone else in the world. Therefore, if X = likelihood of sale to one individual and we assume that reduced likelihood of a potential future sale (which is the RIAA's claim of loss) is equivalent to some loss of income, Toyota's lost income is: X * world population * price And the RIAA has lost: X * 1 * price Meaning that piracy, at the time of writing, is approximately 7 billion times better than theft, and increases in its relative virtue at every moment.

jebblue 15y ago

>> When does the act of stealing occur? If I download a torrent and then delete it without watching/playing/listening, did I steal it? Yes, welcome to adulthood.

ColMustard 15y ago
No. Adulthood has nothing to do with the fact that everyone is using a word that doesn't accurately describe the action taken. Just because it's not stealing doesn't mean it's not illegal. You can't call anything that's illegal "stealing". It's piracy, which is illegal, but a different act than stealing. People who started calling piracy stealing are the same people that cannot accurately understand what is actually happening, and people who benefit from calling it stealing instead of correctly portraiting it as it's own crime. The desensitized image of piracy that people have is somewhat close to the way some people have a desensitized image of credit card fraud. The image that you're hurting a faceless corporation, and not an actual person. Introducing the moral part in an action that doesn't accurately portray a victim is the hard part. When stealing it's easy because you can relate and imagine the victim of an action.
- JonWood 15y ago
  I love that you have a problem with people calling copyright infringement "stealing", but no qualms at all about calling it "piracy" instead, which is an entirely different affair. Certainly the last time I downloaded a TV program I did using BitTorrent, rather than boarding the content producer's boat and taking it with force.
  - Karunamon 15y ago
    >I love that you have a problem with people calling copyright infringement "stealing", but no qualms at all about calling it "piracy" instead, which is an entirely different affair. Pirate, verb, sense 3: The unauthorized use or reproduction of another's work - to pirate software Steal, from the dictionary, first and only sense as a verb: Take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it: "thieves stole her bicycle". This is not that difficult to understand.
  - ColMustard 15y ago
    You are aware that the definition of piracy and pirating has been changed since the 1600's I hope? Here's a link: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/piracy http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/piracy
Anderkent 15y ago
If I write random bits to a file and it turns out to be a Star Wars movie, did I steal it?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- zanek 15y ago
  I was thinking the same thing ! I would actually go one step further. How can anyone OWN information (music,movies,software,etc) which is really binary which is really one big ass number (in base 2). How can you OWN a number ? It doesnt make any sense to me, and I'm a software developer that makes products. Its like saying, "I own the file represented by 23445353568893534534565767525454546422223346445646" and you have to pay me use that number. Sounds pretty dumb when you really break down this entire intellectual property issue
  - jebblue 15y ago
    Think of that number as though it were a house, instead of breaking in and stealing its content, you download the whole house, does that make it less significant?
    - zanek 15y ago
      It's not a house, it's an abstract thing. How can you own a number ?
    - Anderkent 15y ago
      Did you lose your house? If not, then I don't see the issue - I saw your house, copied it, now we both have one.
- demigod 15y ago
  No you didnt if you made up the bits, wrote them, and didnt copy off from a star wars DVD, and in real world once you have written the bits there is no way to know whether you copied it or wrote it by yourself so we compare it with the original and if there is an overbearing similarity then it is considered as piracy or stealing.

joshma 15y ago

It's equivalent in an ethical sense, not equivalent in the legal sense. I think it's perfectly fine to call it stealing, since it embodies the core meaning "steal" is meant to convey. You're depriving another of something that is rightfully theirs, control over their creative content. Let's not get pedantic here, lest we devolve into discussing what "to steal the spotlight" means.

nazgulnarsil 15y ago
control over your creative works is not a right, nor should it be.
vectorpush 15y ago
It's equivalent in an ethical sense In terms of quantifiable impact, I think there is a clear ethical distinction between flipping bits on a disk and taking possession of material property. You're depriving another of something that is rightfully theirs, control over their creative content. Yes, but "control over creative content" is a nebulous concept that bares only a thin resemblance to things that we can determine are absolutely present (or not present, as in the case of theft) Let's not get pedantic here, lest we devolve into discussing what "to steal the spotlight" means. This is exactly my point. I don't think the difference between "to steal the spotlight" and "to steal a spotlight" is a pedantic distinction.
reissbaker 15y ago
"Stealing" generally connotes taking something away from someone else. With piracy, a potential sale is lost: the pirate might have bought the item were it not available illegally for free. With theft, there is both potential sale loss and property loss: if you steal a car from Toyota, they lose the ability to sell the car to you, and they also lose access to the car itself (which prevents them from selling it to anyone else). So Toyota loses twice, whereas the RIAA loses only once. Of course, the ethical difference is probably larger than simply double. To use an old saying, let us assume that: potential sale = a bird in the bush and, access to physical product = a bird in the hand As we know from the ancient algorithm, a bird in the hand = 2 * (a bird in the bush) Piracy loses a potential sale, and theft loses a potential sale and access to a physical product. Therefore, given the following equation: a bird in the bush = x * (a bird in the hand + a bird in the bush) We should be able to solve for x, where x is the amount that piracy is as morally reprehensible as theft. a bird in the bush = x * (2 * a bird in the bush + a bird in the bush) a bird in the bush = x * (3 * a bird in the bush) a bird in the bush / 3 = x * a bird in the bush 1/3 = x As you can see, piracy is clearly 1/3rd as bad as theft. But, I have a feeling that the above algorithm still doesn't sufficiently illustrate the ethical difference between piracy and theft. Let's try again: With piracy, the RIAA has lost the potential sale to the individual pirate. However, they still can sell the same DRMed AAC file to someone else. With our theft example, not only has Toyota lost the ability to sell to the thief: they've also lost the ability to sell that car to anyone else in the world. Therefore, if X = likelihood of sale to one individual and we assume that reduced likelihood of a potential future sale (which is the RIAA's claim of loss) is equivalent to some loss of income, Toyota's lost income is: X * world population * price And the RIAA has lost: X * 1 * price Meaning that piracy, at the time of writing, is approximately 7 billion times better than theft, and increases in its relative virtue at every moment.