9 ms·
Stealing a car deprives someone of a car. Copying a car does not.
by Devilboy 14y ago
Stealing a car deprives someone of a car. Copying a car does not.
- chasing 14y agoI think you understand my point. In a general sense, is doing something criminal okay if it's for self-betterment? Pirating Windows does rob Microsoft of some small portion of their rights as a creator.
- Devilboy 14y agoPiracy for personal use is a 'victimless' (don't bite my head off please) crime, that's why it's OK here. Stealing is not.
- chasing 14y agoPiracy is different from stealing, yeah. But I find it kind of short-sighted this notion that it's "victimless." Not intending to bite your head off. :-)
- rhizome 14y agoRegardless of you thinking the view is short-sighted, without a counterargument it will remain victimless.
- angersock 14y agoA very simple thought experiment: A rap artist is hired by a label to create an album. Said artist later dies. The label goes bankrupt soon thereafter, or perhaps simply folds up shop and leaves the business without auctioning off its assets. I have produced a copy of the album, which I host at my own cost from my server, once these events have transpired. There is no reasonable "victim" left for this crime of infringement, and indeed I'm helping to reduce the scarcity of this product in the world. While somewhat contrived, this thought experiment is not particularly far off from reality.
- chasing 14y agoNo, it's pretty far off from reality. It's an extreme edge case that doesn't at all justify pirating Photoshop.
- angersock 14y agoAh, you're correct--we were talking about software mainly, not music. Software companies never go out of business without selling off their assets, and it's the extreme edge-case where people continue to distribute the works. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abandonware This truly seldom happens.
- Kerrick 14y agoAgain, abandonware does not justify pirating Photoshop, a product that is constantly updated by a very active company.
- Karunamon 14y agoSee also abandonware or emulation of older systems. It's technically illegal for me to go download a copy of System Shock, but the company that made it is long gone, and the company that bought their assets isn't doing anything with it. Illegal? Sort of. Immoral? Not really.
- Domenic_S 14y ago> There is no reasonable "victim" left for this crime of infringement The victim is the artist's heirs.
- gizmo686 14y agoNot necessarily. When you pirate something, you are hurting the owner's chances of selling it to you in the future. If you know that there is no chance that you will buy it, then it is victimless. If however things change and you are in a position where you would buy it, you are far less likely to, which does hurt the seller.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- qu4z-2 14y agoIn some cases you're actually helping the owner's chances of selling it to you in the future. Sometimes I pirate something and it's so good that I just have to buy it. Of course, in a lot of cases demos would work well for that, but they seem to have fallen out of favour recently.
- TheAmazingIdiot 14y agoThis post is meant as a response to DevilBoy and in part you, Chasing. Blending both concepts of copyright violation and theft together, what happens in this common situation? 1. I go to a store and buy an audio CD. I'm given the receipt. 2. My audio CD is stolen at some later date. I still have the receipt. We know a theft happens. Someone stole the disc. However, where is my unique copy created by the rights holder? Is it on the CD? The receipt? Or perhaps more intangible as some sort of judgement (think more like metadata)? Is the thief guilty of copyright infringement? Edit: as meeting this line of thought out, I realize there are 2nd hand shops that can legally sell media of all types (cd's included). How this works is the person (me) goes in with the intent to sell the disc. They give me a price, which we come to a meeting of the minds. Sale occurs based upon first-sale doctrine. This would indicate that the proof of copyright does not exist in the receipt. So would the rightful copy retain with me if there is no meeting of the minds (theft)?
- cremnob 14y agoThis trope comes up every time piracy is discussed. The point is no one is talking about the legal meaning of "stealing" versus "copyright infringement". What people are saying is that it's immoral. The fact that a content company's product is easily stolen simply because the nature of his business means it is effortless to do through the internet doesn't change anything. If you go to a lawyer for legal advice and then refuse to pay him saying "I haven't deprived you of a tangible product so it's not really stealing" you are missing the point, it's still theft. No one would do that, but they do pirate content because it's unbelievably easy and there are no consequences. That's the only reason. Some people are honest about it and say "I just don't want to pay for it". But most people I hear justifying piracy feel entitled to it and don't think there's anything wrong.
- rhizome 14y agoWhat do you mean, "entitled" to it? Are you saying that people who engage in this behavior argue for it to continue indefinitely? I've always known copying to be a reaction to a market failure, not a proposed permanent state of affairs. Where does "entitlement" come into it?
- qu4z-2 14y agoI'm gonna chime in and say that I would certainly propose sharing as a permanent state of affairs. Just not sharing the works of authors who'd prefer we didn't. I propose we move toward listening to/watching/playing more stuff that's Creative Commons or similarly licensed. Mix that in with a bit of Work-for-Hire for things no-one really wants to make, and it would hopefully be viable. Maybe I'm an idealist.
- Devilboy 14y agoI'll stop bringing it up when people stop saying that piracy is the same as car theft. Otherwise why not go all the way and say piracy is genocide.
- gizmo686 14y agoBecuase saying piracy is theft has truthiness, whereas saying piracy is genocide does not.
- paulhauggis 14y agoIdentity theft is still called "theft", even though nothing is actually stolen. Piracy is more like counterfeiting. It's much worse than stealing. Stealing a TV only deprives someone of that physical value. Pirating software has the ability to destroy the value of the entire product line (why would someone pay $99 when they can just get it for free). The same concept also applies to things like the app store. Now that games are 99 cents, it's not easy to create a game and charge $30 anymore (because the value is what people are willing to pay. If everyone were giving these games away for free or they were pirated and everyone knew these games could be downloaded for free, that value would be $0).
- jlgreco 14y agoIf you cannot make spending $99 dollars more appealing to your target audience than going to the pirate bay and messing around with sketchy-ass cracks, then frankly you just suck at selling software and really have little business doing it. The people actually in the market for $99 dollar software in the first are not going to do all that nonsense (unless you have done something terribly wrong with your legitimate distribution channels...), and who cares if people who aren't in your target audience pirate it? Photoshop is the classic example. The people who pirate it are jobless students, while the target audience for Photoshop is undeniably professionals (who buy it). This is evidenced by the lengths that Adobe doesn't bother to go to to prevent piracy. Similarly, with video games people either pirate them because they are not in the market for things that cost $50, or because someone royally fucked up the legitimate distribution (with draconian DRM, or by not offering it on Steam, or whatever). Gamers who are in the market for games buy games.
- paulhauggis 14y ago"If you cannot make spending $99 dollars more appealing to your target audience than going to the pirate bay and messing around with sketchy-ass cracks, then frankly you just suck at selling software and really have little business doing it." So..I should be forced to compete with someone making an exact copy of my software and giving it out for free? Does this make any sense to you? Should hackernews.com be forced to compete with hackernews2.com, which is an exact duplicate? "The people who pirate it are jobless students" Do you have any evidence to back this up? Adobe has a student edition that can be purchased for almost nothing from many sites and it's all legitimate. Microsoft has these programs and also things like the bizspark/webspark programs. You can get free Microsoft software and all you need is an LLC (costs very little to create). Your reasons don't really make sense anymore. "with draconian DRM, or by not offering it on Steam, or whatever)" Wow, we sure are in an entitlement generation. If you can't get exactly what you want, you take it upon yourself to just take it. I also can't really take anyone that uses the word "draconian" seriously. The problem with your logic is that it never ends. Look at the music industry: At first, it was because CDs were too expensive. The record companies responded by having 99 cent singles and very cheap music. Next, it was because the artists weren't being treated fairly. With the Internet, you can now release your music without any label. Hell, even the infamous louis CK $5 comedy special was pirated like hell the day after it was released. It's very cheap, DRM free, and people still pirated the hell out of it. How do you explain this? The "Draconian" DRM? Too expensive? The bits weren't in the right order for the pirates' specification? Piracy came first, not "Draconian DRM", so this is not a valid excuse as to why people are pirating, sorry. "Gamers who are in the market for games buy games." Your mindset isn't new and as a software developer (and business owner), I just need to change my business plan. Now, you will need to pay a monthly fee for my service instead of owning it outright. It stops piracy dead. I hope you enjoy paying a monthly fee for all of your software, because it's a world piracy helped create. I'm sick of people like you that just can't be honest: you want free stuff and you aren't willing to use you hard earned money to get it.
- jasonlotito 14y agoBear with me, I'm trying to play devil's advocate here. While you might not be depriving someone of a car, you are devaluing the product. Consider in the OP's case, he learned how to do certain things with this stolen software, and now he can sell his services for what is most likely less than what those who paid for their software and training charge. This, in some way, steals work from them. His knowledge is "illegally gained." Even if they don't charge less for their work, maybe they come here on a visa. Once again, taking jobs from those that earned it through legal channels. So simply suggest that the only ramifications are from the software company missing out on a sale ignores the entire ecosystem.