7 ms·

This 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 p

by cremnob 14y ago

This 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 ago
What 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 ago
  I'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 ago
I'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 ago
  Becuase saying piracy is theft has truthiness, whereas saying piracy is genocide does not.
  - vidarh 14y ago
    Neither "has truthiness". Copyright exists as a separate legal doctrine for a very simple reason: It is materially different from theft. Enough so that making property law fit copyright is not feasible in any reasonable way. One is based on an presumptive right of the individual to protection of their right to continued use of something. The other is an artificial government monopoly restricting the public from exercising their right to full use of their own property, by preventing them from copying and distributing information that is legally already in their possession, and where nobody are deprived of continued use at all.
    - gizmo686 14y ago
      I think you miss understood me. I used the word "truthiness" to mean it sounds like it is true. For someone not fammilar with the issue, saying pirating is a form of theft sounds valid.
angersock 14y ago
Then they need to say it is immoral--a position which may arguably be correct--and not say that it is stealing--a position which is intellectually dishonest and trivially shown to be incorrect. Choice of words here is very, very important. If you want to start staking out a moral claim on information, you damned well had better choose your message carefully.
- cremnob 14y ago
  It's semantics and is irrelevant every time this topic comes up because no one is actually talking about legal definitions. Pirates always seem to miss that it's a moral argument when they trot out these familiar lines (the irony isn't lost on me). Whether or not you're guilty of petty theft, shoplifting, larceny, or burglary is for your lawyers and the courts to determine. For me and others from my position it is much simpler, you're still a thief and it's still wrong.
  - angersock 14y ago
    It's completely relevant, especially because the normal intuitions about stealing and property rights here are so ill-defined. Consider, if you will, that for hundreds of years the concept of intellectual property--indeed, even the idea of land ownership in some places-was foreign. You simply cannot throw up your hands and say "But semantics!" and expect to be taken seriously. At best, you look lazy--at worst, you appear a sycophant to those who rely on provably unneeded monopolies of information distribution. You're position is indeed much simpler: you seem to be either unwilling or unable to understand that this ongoing public dialogue about intellectual property, copyright, and related matters is something that isn't cut and dried.
    - kybernetikos 14y ago
      Just to back you up on the history side: "If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property." Thomas Jefferson "The ordinary subjects of property are well known, and easily conceived... But property, when applied to ideas, or literary and intellectual compositions, is perfectly new and surprising... by far the most comprehensive denomination of it would be a property in nonsense." Lord Gardenston in Hinton vs Donaldson, 1773
kybernetikos 14y ago
> 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. And what is dishonest about that? When a builder builds a house he gets paid for his work. If he wants more money, he has to do more building. He can't just sit back and take a payment every time someone enters that building for the rest of his life. Nurses, doctors, lawyers, shopkeepers, mechanics, service staff, chefs, teachers all have the same deal. You can't multiply your work by the people who benefit from it forever (maybe everyone who likes the person whose life you saved?) and get paid by each one. Now to me, that seems sane and normal. You want more money, you do more work. Getting the government to pass special laws allowing you to extract rent from your creative endevour for every person who experiences it going into the future is what seems dishonest to me.
- cremnob 14y ago
  If a builder wants to take a payment every time you enter the building he is free to do so, thinking otherwise is highly presumptuous. Whether that business model will be viable in the market will be left for him to see (hotel managers operate exactly like this except they don't get paid for entering their building but for getting a room for the night). What's dishonest about it? The mental gymnastics to rationalize their actions when it's really about "I don't have to pay for this and there are no consequences if I don't so I'm not going to".
  - kybernetikos 14y ago
    You seem to think it's impossible for people to genuinely believe that copying is not theft. You're wrong. There are a lot of people who genuinely believe that sharing is not theft, and far from being something that we should persecute, is something that makes humanity richer and the world a better place, and many of those people do not believe it simply in order to feel better about copying stuff, since they don't actually 'pirate' copyrighted things.
    - cremnob 14y ago
bjustin 14y ago
>This 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. It comes up every time because piracy and stealing are worlds apart morally. Were I to steal someone's car, they would be incredibly inconvenienced. Were I to illegitimately obtain a piece of software, the developers just get a smaller check at the end of the month. As the article says, things are not black and white and we should not treat them as if they were. There are degrees of 'badness', and piracy is not as bad as stealing.
- Karunamon 14y ago
  >the developers just get a smaller check at the end of the month. ..Only if you were going to buy it in the first place and decided not to.
reedlaw 14y ago
I would quibble with your definition of stealing in the case of copying a content company's product. Certainly it's not in the content company's best interest for one person to purchase a CD and then make a copy for his neighbor. But what makes it stealing? The legality of shrink-wrap licensing can be debated, but in many people's minds the action is not disimilar to loaning the CD, or making photocopies of books at a library. Of course the moral behavior would be to respect the publisher's wish to receive payment from each possessor of a CD with those same arrangements of bits, although that course of action might be morally overridden due to certain extenuating circumstances (such as those encountered by the author).
pringles 14y ago
> 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. That is theft because you've robbed the lawyer of his opportunity cost. For the time he was spending giving you legal advice, he could have been giving it to someone else that would pay him. A more apt analogy would be secretly listening in on a lawyer giving legal advice to a paying client. You haven't taken anything away from him or the paying client, and all you've done is "copied" what was being heard anyway.
- slavak 14y ago
  Actually it's most certainly not theft. It's probably categorized as breach of contract -- though don't take my word here. Regardless you've just ended up proving his point.
learc83 14y ago
If a thief steals a car that sells for $10,000, is the dealership out the cost of the car, or are they out the cost of the car plus $10k because the thief might have purchased the car at some point?
TeMPOraL 14y ago
> The fact that a content company's product is easily stolen It's not stolen, it's copied. One of the dark-arts pro-copyright people used was to conflate those two terms into one word. We can still discuss if breaking someone's business model by copying is moral or not, but we really need to separate those two words and talk about them with extreme precision - especially given how heated the discussion is.

by cremnob 14y ago

rhizome 14y ago

What 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 ago
I'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 ago

I'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 ago
Becuase saying piracy is theft has truthiness, whereas saying piracy is genocide does not.
- vidarh 14y ago
  Neither "has truthiness". Copyright exists as a separate legal doctrine for a very simple reason: It is materially different from theft. Enough so that making property law fit copyright is not feasible in any reasonable way. One is based on an presumptive right of the individual to protection of their right to continued use of something. The other is an artificial government monopoly restricting the public from exercising their right to full use of their own property, by preventing them from copying and distributing information that is legally already in their possession, and where nobody are deprived of continued use at all.
  - gizmo686 14y ago
    I think you miss understood me. I used the word "truthiness" to mean it sounds like it is true. For someone not fammilar with the issue, saying pirating is a form of theft sounds valid.

angersock 14y ago

Then they need to say it is immoral--a position which may arguably be correct--and not say that it is stealing--a position which is intellectually dishonest and trivially shown to be incorrect. Choice of words here is very, very important. If you want to start staking out a moral claim on information, you damned well had better choose your message carefully.

cremnob 14y ago
It's semantics and is irrelevant every time this topic comes up because no one is actually talking about legal definitions. Pirates always seem to miss that it's a moral argument when they trot out these familiar lines (the irony isn't lost on me). Whether or not you're guilty of petty theft, shoplifting, larceny, or burglary is for your lawyers and the courts to determine. For me and others from my position it is much simpler, you're still a thief and it's still wrong.
- angersock 14y ago
  It's completely relevant, especially because the normal intuitions about stealing and property rights here are so ill-defined. Consider, if you will, that for hundreds of years the concept of intellectual property--indeed, even the idea of land ownership in some places-was foreign. You simply cannot throw up your hands and say "But semantics!" and expect to be taken seriously. At best, you look lazy--at worst, you appear a sycophant to those who rely on provably unneeded monopolies of information distribution. You're position is indeed much simpler: you seem to be either unwilling or unable to understand that this ongoing public dialogue about intellectual property, copyright, and related matters is something that isn't cut and dried.
  - kybernetikos 14y ago
    Just to back you up on the history side: "If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property." Thomas Jefferson "The ordinary subjects of property are well known, and easily conceived... But property, when applied to ideas, or literary and intellectual compositions, is perfectly new and surprising... by far the most comprehensive denomination of it would be a property in nonsense." Lord Gardenston in Hinton vs Donaldson, 1773

kybernetikos 14y ago

> 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. And what is dishonest about that? When a builder builds a house he gets paid for his work. If he wants more money, he has to do more building. He can't just sit back and take a payment every time someone enters that building for the rest of his life. Nurses, doctors, lawyers, shopkeepers, mechanics, service staff, chefs, teachers all have the same deal. You can't multiply your work by the people who benefit from it forever (maybe everyone who likes the person whose life you saved?) and get paid by each one. Now to me, that seems sane and normal. You want more money, you do more work. Getting the government to pass special laws allowing you to extract rent from your creative endevour for every person who experiences it going into the future is what seems dishonest to me.

cremnob 14y ago
If a builder wants to take a payment every time you enter the building he is free to do so, thinking otherwise is highly presumptuous. Whether that business model will be viable in the market will be left for him to see (hotel managers operate exactly like this except they don't get paid for entering their building but for getting a room for the night). What's dishonest about it? The mental gymnastics to rationalize their actions when it's really about "I don't have to pay for this and there are no consequences if I don't so I'm not going to".
- kybernetikos 14y ago
  You seem to think it's impossible for people to genuinely believe that copying is not theft. You're wrong. There are a lot of people who genuinely believe that sharing is not theft, and far from being something that we should persecute, is something that makes humanity richer and the world a better place, and many of those people do not believe it simply in order to feel better about copying stuff, since they don't actually 'pirate' copyrighted things.
  - cremnob 14y ago

bjustin 14y ago

>This 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. It comes up every time because piracy and stealing are worlds apart morally. Were I to steal someone's car, they would be incredibly inconvenienced. Were I to illegitimately obtain a piece of software, the developers just get a smaller check at the end of the month. As the article says, things are not black and white and we should not treat them as if they were. There are degrees of 'badness', and piracy is not as bad as stealing.

Karunamon 14y ago
>the developers just get a smaller check at the end of the month. ..Only if you were going to buy it in the first place and decided not to.

reedlaw 14y ago

I would quibble with your definition of stealing in the case of copying a content company's product. Certainly it's not in the content company's best interest for one person to purchase a CD and then make a copy for his neighbor. But what makes it stealing? The legality of shrink-wrap licensing can be debated, but in many people's minds the action is not disimilar to loaning the CD, or making photocopies of books at a library. Of course the moral behavior would be to respect the publisher's wish to receive payment from each possessor of a CD with those same arrangements of bits, although that course of action might be morally overridden due to certain extenuating circumstances (such as those encountered by the author).

pringles 14y ago

> 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. That is theft because you've robbed the lawyer of his opportunity cost. For the time he was spending giving you legal advice, he could have been giving it to someone else that would pay him. A more apt analogy would be secretly listening in on a lawyer giving legal advice to a paying client. You haven't taken anything away from him or the paying client, and all you've done is "copied" what was being heard anyway.

slavak 14y ago
Actually it's most certainly not theft. It's probably categorized as breach of contract -- though don't take my word here. Regardless you've just ended up proving his point.

learc83 14y ago

If a thief steals a car that sells for $10,000, is the dealership out the cost of the car, or are they out the cost of the car plus $10k because the thief might have purchased the car at some point?

TeMPOraL 14y ago

> The fact that a content company's product is easily stolen It's not stolen, it's copied. One of the dark-arts pro-copyright people used was to conflate those two terms into one word. We can still discuss if breaking someone's business model by copying is moral or not, but we really need to separate those two words and talk about them with extreme precision - especially given how heated the discussion is.