3 ms·

Would you consider wage theft of an employee by an employer a non-crime? After all, it's just their time and no physical goods are stolen.

matheusmoreira 3y ago
Of course. It's not about tangible or intangible goods. It's about scarcity and whether it's artificial or real. Time is the most scarce resource there is. You can't copy time the way you can trivially copy bits.
- billy99k 3y ago
  "You can't copy time the way you can trivially copy bits." It took time to arrange the bits in such a way that you desired to copy them. Copying bits is not stealing. It's worse than stealing, it's counterfeiting. When you steal a car, the car manufacturer can still sell cars at that value. When you counterfeit software (or anything digital), the original work is devalued over time, because as the counterfeit becomes more widespread, the value approaches $0.
  - trealira 3y ago
    That's a good point. By the same logic, actually, counterfeiting currency wouldn't be a crime either, as the scarcity is artificially sustained by the government, but the consequence of everyone being able to print their own currency is that cash would become worthless.
    - matheusmoreira 3y ago
      That's not a good point at all. Counterfeiting physical items is not the same as copying information. Physical items are naturally scarce, information is naturally abundant and artificially made scarce by force of law. Physical items actually exist in the real world, unlike information.
      - trealira 3y ago
        I don't think that applies to cash. Cash is artificially scarce. It's only kept scarce by the fact that it's illegal for anyone but the government to print it, and because printers refuse to print something if they detect a certain pattern that's present on bills. Otherwise, cash would only be worth the paper it's printed on.
        matheusmoreira 3y ago
        It's naturally scarce. Even if it was easy to print dollar bills, they would not be infinite. You actually need physical material to make them. That puts hard limits to the scale of any counterfeiting operation. They could make it legal and it wouldn't have a fraction of the impact of fractional reserve banking which literally creates mountains of money out nowhere via the power of debt.
  - matheusmoreira 3y ago
    > It took time to arrange the bits in such a way that you desired to copy them. Correct. It's that labor which is valuable. The labor of creation, of finding that interesting unique number in the sea of infinity. That's valuable. Well at least it used to be anyway. AI is proving itself quite adept at finding interesting numbers. > it's counterfeiting No, it's copyright infringement. That's what they call it anyway. I don't consider it worse than literally anything. I consider it natural. People do it without even realizing that they're doing it. Every single day. At massive scales. > the original work is devalued over time, because as the counterfeit becomes more widespread, the value approaches $0. It doesn't approach zero, it is zero. It always was zero. Once created, information is infinitely copyable, it is infinitely abundant, supply is infinite. That's the reason why they had to create an artificial scarcity system on top of it. Because it's not actually real. It's this copyright nonsense that allowed people to delude themselves into thinking numbers could bought and sold. Maybe that was true once in the age of the printing press. It's not true in the 21st century, the age of information and globally networked pocket supercomputers. Copyright was over the second computers were invented. It's time to let go. Creators need to find alternative business models where they get paid before the act of creating for the act of creating. Because it's that labor which is scarce and valuable. The end result is not.

matheusmoreira 3y ago

Of course. It's not about tangible or intangible goods. It's about scarcity and whether it's artificial or real. Time is the most scarce resource there is. You can't copy time the way you can trivially copy bits.

billy99k 3y ago
"You can't copy time the way you can trivially copy bits." It took time to arrange the bits in such a way that you desired to copy them. Copying bits is not stealing. It's worse than stealing, it's counterfeiting. When you steal a car, the car manufacturer can still sell cars at that value. When you counterfeit software (or anything digital), the original work is devalued over time, because as the counterfeit becomes more widespread, the value approaches $0.
- trealira 3y ago
  That's a good point. By the same logic, actually, counterfeiting currency wouldn't be a crime either, as the scarcity is artificially sustained by the government, but the consequence of everyone being able to print their own currency is that cash would become worthless.
  - matheusmoreira 3y ago
    That's not a good point at all. Counterfeiting physical items is not the same as copying information. Physical items are naturally scarce, information is naturally abundant and artificially made scarce by force of law. Physical items actually exist in the real world, unlike information.
    - trealira 3y ago
      I don't think that applies to cash. Cash is artificially scarce. It's only kept scarce by the fact that it's illegal for anyone but the government to print it, and because printers refuse to print something if they detect a certain pattern that's present on bills. Otherwise, cash would only be worth the paper it's printed on.
      - matheusmoreira 3y ago
        It's naturally scarce. Even if it was easy to print dollar bills, they would not be infinite. You actually need physical material to make them. That puts hard limits to the scale of any counterfeiting operation. They could make it legal and it wouldn't have a fraction of the impact of fractional reserve banking which literally creates mountains of money out nowhere via the power of debt.
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  > It took time to arrange the bits in such a way that you desired to copy them. Correct. It's that labor which is valuable. The labor of creation, of finding that interesting unique number in the sea of infinity. That's valuable. Well at least it used to be anyway. AI is proving itself quite adept at finding interesting numbers. > it's counterfeiting No, it's copyright infringement. That's what they call it anyway. I don't consider it worse than literally anything. I consider it natural. People do it without even realizing that they're doing it. Every single day. At massive scales. > the original work is devalued over time, because as the counterfeit becomes more widespread, the value approaches $0. It doesn't approach zero, it is zero. It always was zero. Once created, information is infinitely copyable, it is infinitely abundant, supply is infinite. That's the reason why they had to create an artificial scarcity system on top of it. Because it's not actually real. It's this copyright nonsense that allowed people to delude themselves into thinking numbers could bought and sold. Maybe that was true once in the age of the printing press. It's not true in the 21st century, the age of information and globally networked pocket supercomputers. Copyright was over the second computers were invented. It's time to let go. Creators need to find alternative business models where they get paid before the act of creating for the act of creating. Because it's that labor which is scarce and valuable. The end result is not.