3 ms·
We all know that he means copyright infringement: the content was reproduced without permission. Using the literal definitions of the words "stealing,""theft,"
by chaz 13y ago
We all know that he means copyright infringement: the content was reproduced without permission. Using the literal definitions of the words "stealing,""theft," and "piracy" mistakes pedantry as rebuttal, and helps no one when discussing copyrights.
- DougBTX 13y agoI'm all for using the actual meaning of words. If that means it is harder to make emotional arguments, then so be it.
- chaz 13y agoI am, too, but like "hacking," those horses have long left the barn.
- BlackDeath3 13y agoThough I had a good chuckle at the grandparent post, it seems to be less about preventing emotional arguments and more about derailing a legitimate concern (potential loss of revenue or whatever) with pedantry.
- chc 13y agoWords do not have an "actual" meaning. They have definitions assigned on a more or less arbitrary basis, and there may be multiple conflicting definitions for any one word†. The Greeks used to believe that foreigners were stupid because they spoke something that was not proper Greek. Nowadays we laugh at their naïveté, but then turn around and talk about the "actual meaning of words." It's just silly. † Just within English we have words like "cleave," that are widely accepted as meaning both "hold on tightly" and "separate." And in Spanish, we have "dame" which means "give," while in Japanese they use the same word to mean "don't do that." Can we declare the Spanish or the Japanese to be wrong about what that word means?
- Crito 13y ago> Words do not have an "actual" meaning. When they are terms of art, they frequently do.
- chc 13y agoNo, they have an accepted meaning among practicioners of that art. That meaning is not more "real" than other meanings, though is more likely to be contextually appropriate. The fact that "reduce" is a term of art in programming for "debug" does not make somebody who uses it in cooking instructions wrong. Basically, what I'm saying is, the fact that you and your friends use a word a certain way doesn't automatically invalidate other people's usages. It is true that mattmanser's use of "steal" was not legally precise, but neither are many colloquial uses of the word ("It was such a steal at $5!", "He's stealing third", "Great artists steal", "His identity got stolen", etc.). You would be right to object if he had been raising a legal argument based around the concept of theft, but he wasn't, so it seems overly pedantic to me.
- Crito 13y ago> No, they have an accepted meaning among practicioners of that art. You are getting close to the point here. Why does a term of art have a specific meaning to a practitioner of that art? Answer that, and you will have determined why words have meanings in any context.
- mchaver 13y agoIt makes it easier for the practitioners to discuss their art. Jargon is useful if all parties understand the concepts and the forms (words assigned to the concept) used to represent them. Otherwise you have to expand the jargon into larger units. Borrowing words across fields (because of similarity) can cause confusion. One person may assign a meaning from a different field than the other interlocutors are using.
- PhasmaFelis 13y agoIt's not quite the same as pedantry; it's using sarcasm to make the point that copyright infringement is not the same thing as theft and pretending that it is is misleading and deceptive.