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You haven't eliminated jobs: the bosses of people who are getting laid off are, after they buy your software. Crucial difference. > It is not a crime to depriv

You haven't eliminated jobs: the bosses of people who are getting laid off are, after they buy your software. Crucial difference. > It is not a crime to deprive someone of their income stream No, but it is a crime to steal. If someone has created digital goods, put them up for sale, and you acquire them without paying, that is stealing. The fact they didn't "lose" some physical product in the process is irrelevant. You have cheated them out of their commensurate half of an even exchange they have offered. If you don't like the exchange, find it too expensive, the product not worth it, what have you, that's fine, you are free to not complete the transaction. You are not free to bypass it and gain the thing you weren't willing to pay for without paying.

Dutchie987 3y ago
If I would never buy the digital good, even if I didn't copy it, how am I depriving an author of any income? The act of me making a copy makes no difference at all to the author. I'm either not buying and not copying, or I'm not buying and copying. Net result is the same for the author. The is no cheating, there is no loss. At all.
- ToucanLoucan 3y ago
  > If I would never buy the digital good, even if I didn't copy it, how am I depriving an author of any income? Because the author has offered it at a price because they have invested time, energy, expertise, and skill to create it. That's the value. It would be akin to saying to a cabinet maker that they are not owed money for their cabinet because they didn't make the wood, the tree did, which completely trivializes the labor and craft involved. In an ideal world, we wouldn't need to be paid. We'd provide what we could and get what we need in return, but we don't live in that world.
  - Dutchie987 3y ago
    A cabinet maker builds very fine furniture and offers it for sale at a price. I'm not buying his beautifully crafted wares, for any and all reason. Now you come inspect my house, what actual difference does it make if I'm sitting on milk crates or furniture that looks suspiciously like the sculpted wood from the cabinet maker? My copying the furniture or not doing that makes no difference. There is no guarantee someone can make an income from their labor. Nobody has an obligation to buy something just because it was made.
    - ToucanLoucan 3y ago
      I mean, if you have gone out of your way to shape your own wooden furniture that looks like his, out of wood that you harvested or purchased, then the value generated is yours via your woodworking skill and no one would expect you to buy it if you're capable and willing to make it yourself. That being said you're engaging in all manner of motivated reasoning to get around basic theories of value and clinging to this notion that if you could somehow get a flawless copy of a thing someone is selling that is in all other ways equivalent to the original that you haven't committed a crime, and while technically true, it utterly obliterates the notion of intellectual property. Now, IP law as it exists has many problems and pitfalls that require reform, however you are seemingly arguing that the theory of intellectual property is invalid, which is quite an interesting viewpoint for someone who apparently earns their living writing software. In so far as the following assumptions are true: - The world in which you live requires that you earn a living to subsist yourself - The world in which you live desires intellectual creations that can be copied harmlessly (movies, software, art, music, basically all entertainment products, design blueprints, et al) - Reality consists of a finite amount of time, of which a given individual receives a certain amount, and during which said individual must balance activities that generate income to cover the cost of assumption 1 - The reliable way for an individual to satisfy assumptions 1 and 3 is to dedicate a certain amount of time to the creation of products that can be sold While you taking a copy of something that you never intended to buy doesn't technically cost an author a sale that would, by your statement, never occur, it nevertheless means that you now possess their creation that was made with their energy, skills, and time which are individually all expressions of their finite time on the planet, assumption 3. That is, no matter how you want to excuse it, unethical. Energy is conserved, matter is conserved, theft of someone else's time and effort to produce a thing you wanted is theft.
      - Dutchie987 3y ago
        I'm having a hard time to articulate the exact position I'm defending. Possibly because I'm not actually all that sure of my own position, and I'm reacting more out of feelings than ratio. Intellectual property is a bit strange, as it can be copied at zero cost and effort. If material goods could be duplicated for free we would have a decidedly different society, I think. Going back to the example of the furniture maker. If I just copy his designs roughly but procure the wood myself, learn woodworking, put in the work to saw, sand and hammer the wood into shape, would I be in the clear? What if I copy it by carefully measuring all his dimensions? What is the difference to the furniture maker if I just magically copy his furniture instead of toiling in my workshop to recreate it? I get what you're saying, but I'm not sure if I really agree with it. If everyone just copies everything at zero cost, no-one would make any money. But on the other hand I would never have bought any furniture from the craftsman anyway, so where is the harm? It's a conundrum. At least for me...
- PurpleRamen 3y ago
  At least you support the system and the mindset, even it you are not depriving a specific creator of their income. This is a topic where the individual act is usually irrelevant, but the collective action sums up and might move in a harmful direction. I mean, Immanuel Kant might have something deeper to say about this..
Kim_Bruning 3y ago
Despite a few publicity campaigns trying to convince people of the contrary, it is literally the case that copying is not theft, legally speaking. While some people feel there are some ethical similarities, the law in most countries certainly does not treat them as the same thing. Very often, copyright infringement is not even treated as a crime. More commonly it is a civil matter. (Law is complicated, exceptions exist, I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice)
hermannj314 3y ago
> You are not free to bypass it and gain the thing you weren't willing to pay for without paying. If someone is selling fresh air, the fragrance of a stew, a public performance - I am free to breath, smell, see and listen and I don't have to agree to buy what they don't own. Independent of what politicians and lawmakers believe, a few humans out here think copying a digital good is like listening to the echoes of a concert you don't have a ticket to attend.
- bumby 3y ago
  Air isn’t a great analogy because it’s a public good. There are crucial differences between a digital good and “echoes of a concert” that muddles the latter analogy.

Dutchie987 3y ago

If I would never buy the digital good, even if I didn't copy it, how am I depriving an author of any income? The act of me making a copy makes no difference at all to the author. I'm either not buying and not copying, or I'm not buying and copying. Net result is the same for the author. The is no cheating, there is no loss. At all.

ToucanLoucan 3y ago
> If I would never buy the digital good, even if I didn't copy it, how am I depriving an author of any income? Because the author has offered it at a price because they have invested time, energy, expertise, and skill to create it. That's the value. It would be akin to saying to a cabinet maker that they are not owed money for their cabinet because they didn't make the wood, the tree did, which completely trivializes the labor and craft involved. In an ideal world, we wouldn't need to be paid. We'd provide what we could and get what we need in return, but we don't live in that world.
- Dutchie987 3y ago
  A cabinet maker builds very fine furniture and offers it for sale at a price. I'm not buying his beautifully crafted wares, for any and all reason. Now you come inspect my house, what actual difference does it make if I'm sitting on milk crates or furniture that looks suspiciously like the sculpted wood from the cabinet maker? My copying the furniture or not doing that makes no difference. There is no guarantee someone can make an income from their labor. Nobody has an obligation to buy something just because it was made.
  - ToucanLoucan 3y ago
    I mean, if you have gone out of your way to shape your own wooden furniture that looks like his, out of wood that you harvested or purchased, then the value generated is yours via your woodworking skill and no one would expect you to buy it if you're capable and willing to make it yourself. That being said you're engaging in all manner of motivated reasoning to get around basic theories of value and clinging to this notion that if you could somehow get a flawless copy of a thing someone is selling that is in all other ways equivalent to the original that you haven't committed a crime, and while technically true, it utterly obliterates the notion of intellectual property. Now, IP law as it exists has many problems and pitfalls that require reform, however you are seemingly arguing that the theory of intellectual property is invalid, which is quite an interesting viewpoint for someone who apparently earns their living writing software. In so far as the following assumptions are true: - The world in which you live requires that you earn a living to subsist yourself - The world in which you live desires intellectual creations that can be copied harmlessly (movies, software, art, music, basically all entertainment products, design blueprints, et al) - Reality consists of a finite amount of time, of which a given individual receives a certain amount, and during which said individual must balance activities that generate income to cover the cost of assumption 1 - The reliable way for an individual to satisfy assumptions 1 and 3 is to dedicate a certain amount of time to the creation of products that can be sold While you taking a copy of something that you never intended to buy doesn't technically cost an author a sale that would, by your statement, never occur, it nevertheless means that you now possess their creation that was made with their energy, skills, and time which are individually all expressions of their finite time on the planet, assumption 3. That is, no matter how you want to excuse it, unethical. Energy is conserved, matter is conserved, theft of someone else's time and effort to produce a thing you wanted is theft.
    - Dutchie987 3y ago
      I'm having a hard time to articulate the exact position I'm defending. Possibly because I'm not actually all that sure of my own position, and I'm reacting more out of feelings than ratio. Intellectual property is a bit strange, as it can be copied at zero cost and effort. If material goods could be duplicated for free we would have a decidedly different society, I think. Going back to the example of the furniture maker. If I just copy his designs roughly but procure the wood myself, learn woodworking, put in the work to saw, sand and hammer the wood into shape, would I be in the clear? What if I copy it by carefully measuring all his dimensions? What is the difference to the furniture maker if I just magically copy his furniture instead of toiling in my workshop to recreate it? I get what you're saying, but I'm not sure if I really agree with it. If everyone just copies everything at zero cost, no-one would make any money. But on the other hand I would never have bought any furniture from the craftsman anyway, so where is the harm? It's a conundrum. At least for me...
PurpleRamen 3y ago
At least you support the system and the mindset, even it you are not depriving a specific creator of their income. This is a topic where the individual act is usually irrelevant, but the collective action sums up and might move in a harmful direction. I mean, Immanuel Kant might have something deeper to say about this..

Kim_Bruning 3y ago

Despite a few publicity campaigns trying to convince people of the contrary, it is literally the case that copying is not theft, legally speaking. While some people feel there are some ethical similarities, the law in most countries certainly does not treat them as the same thing. Very often, copyright infringement is not even treated as a crime. More commonly it is a civil matter. (Law is complicated, exceptions exist, I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice)

hermannj314 3y ago

> You are not free to bypass it and gain the thing you weren't willing to pay for without paying. If someone is selling fresh air, the fragrance of a stew, a public performance - I am free to breath, smell, see and listen and I don't have to agree to buy what they don't own. Independent of what politicians and lawmakers believe, a few humans out here think copying a digital good is like listening to the echoes of a concert you don't have a ticket to attend.

bumby 3y ago
Air isn’t a great analogy because it’s a public good. There are crucial differences between a digital good and “echoes of a concert” that muddles the latter analogy.