5 ms·

Stealing exists at a culturally-defined threshold. One must be brought up (or assimilated) with an understanding of what is 'property' and what is not. Then,

by ap22213 13y ago

Stealing exists at a culturally-defined threshold. One must be brought up (or assimilated) with an understanding of what is 'property' and what is not. Then, one has to also understand what is 'ownership'. Most of us learn this stuff implicitly, from the people around us, but in a globally connected world, this is much more difficult. I know this first-hand because I grew up in poor Appalachia, in the US. There, property and ownership and rights were much differently understood than in metropolitan Virginia where I live now. Even though we were under the jurisdiction of local, state, and national laws regarding such things, we followed the norms of the people around us. But, as I became assimilated into the urban 'middle-class', I had to re-learn these things. I think this is why file sharing in the US became so popular in the 90s/2000s. Kids (and adults) who were otherwise raised with an understanding of US 'property rights' were nonetheless stealing media. The media that was being shared just didn't have a cultural foundation as property, to them. Anyway, there are a lot of people on the internet that don't necessarily have the same understanding of property and rights and ownership than us. Some people just don't know that what they're doing is bad and/or illegal.

rjbwork 13y ago
>I know this first-hand because I grew up in poor Appalachia, in the US. There, property and ownership and rights were much differently understood than in metropolitan Virginia where I live now This sounds fascinating, could you elaborate on some of these differences? Both from a real property (land) and object property (trinkets, devices, food, etc) perspective?
- ap22213 13y ago
  It was more of a shared, collective kind of property model. People generally knew which things that people had and who currently had it. Generally, one would 'borrow' a thing indefinitely, until someone else 'borrowed' it. It wasn't uncommon for someone to 'borrow' a car, for example. You would just take it, if you needed it. It worked well, in that small culture of people. But, it certainly presented a lot of challenges for me as I left that area. It took me a long time to learn that that wasn't accepted behavior for middle-class urban people. For example, in college, people would come to my dorm, and I'd give them my stuff, not expecting that I'd get it back. Tensions would flare up when I'd 'borrow' other kids' stuff and then lend their stuff out to others. It took me awhile to understand that that was frowned upon. I also had to learn that I couldn't just take stuff. I was used to going to other people's houses and just eating their food, taking video games, music, etc. - Yeah, the middle-class urbanites didn't like that very much. Even now, I have strange understandings of property. I'm very likely to just give my stuff away, to even people that I don't know very well. Most people who witness this think it is very, very odd.
  - driverdan 13y ago
    Are you sure you didn't come from a family of thieves? Have you discussed this with other members of your community, especially law enforcement?
  - jofer 13y ago
    It's quite common in rural areas. I grew up in west TN, and the exact same sort of situation exists there. I've lived in Alaska for a bit, and it's ubiquitous there. (e.g. you _never_ lock a cabin, as someone might need to get in) A good example is chainsaws. Where I'm from, you heat with wood. Therefore, having a functioning chainsaw is a necessity. New chainsaws (or good ones, anyway) are fairly expensive, so you invariably have several ancient ones around that you're coaxing into functional shape. When you don't have anything working, you just go to a neighbor and borrow one. If someone asks for one, you loan them one that's working, even if it's the one you borrowed from your neighbor. The point being, you owe someone "a functioning chainsaw", not "that particular saw". It's effectively a communal pool of tools. To this day my parents usually don't pay when they buy groceries. They just write their name on the back of the receipt and pay the accumulated bill whenever they get around to it. Just a few years ago, nowhere took credit cards, so the stores all extended credit that way. People need to eat, and often don't have cash until the end/start of the month. Similarly, it's changed now, but growing up, the gas station left its pumps on at night. If you needed gas after the station was closed, you just pumped it and dropped in the next day to pay the bill. At any rate, you're very aware that you're a part of a community, even if your nearest neighbor is several miles away. People are fiercely independent and individualistic, but resources are treated somewhat communally. Of course, a lot of that is changing, but it's more true the more you move towards the "fringes" of society, in my experience. I knew folks who kept someone posted on the ridge to shoot at any car they didn't recognize (the sheriff literally called first when they had to respond to something or serve a warrant). At lot of methheads and a lot of folks on the run, but you'd never think twice about loaning them your truck or saw.
    - angersock 13y ago
      That sounds really nice, actually. So, where does it fall over?
belorn 13y ago
Lets talk about government actions like if they were property. Copyright is an deal for which my property (tax money) is used in a deal between authors. My property (tax money) in order to create and defend a monopoly, and in exchange I get to use the work after a limited time. However, the deal was changed over and over again, and now I will never, ever, see the other side of the deal. The written word evolve faster than copyright expires. Physical medium of movies and music deteriorate to dust, and the technology in programs will be obsolete and dead beyond recreation. Taking my money for this deal is stealing. The only way government can make me support copyright is by force, which is the current way it is supported. I consider this much more unethical than a person who ignores the copyright deal. I like that artistic people can live on their work. However, ask me to choose between that and respecting the copyright deal, and I will pick the lesser evil.
bad_user 13y ago
The problem with defining copyright infringement as stealing is one of reality. At its essence, the market works by supply and demand. Copyright is basically the government imposing a monopoly on a piece of work to limit the supply. That goes against the principles of a free market on so many levels and the only reasonable argument for it would be ... for the flourishing of the public domain. Can you make that argument right now? Of course you can't. Otherwise, if something is so cheap to copy, to build upon, why should it be illegal to do so? Technological advances happen leading to the destruction of business models like all the time. Copyright is basically legislature that protects the incumbents. Let me put it another way - if a machine was invented that basically materialized food out of thin air and poor people from Africa would copy the design, built it and produced food with it to feed themselves, would that be considered stealing from the inventor? What if they stole the food in question? What if the food they stole was produced by a machine out of thin air? Maybe the real problem is that our current economic and business models don't really work anymore ;-)
- millstone 13y ago
  What if the inventor couldn't get funding to do the research, because nobody was willing to pay for the product?
  - bad_user 13y ago
    We could either: 1. accept that fact, supply and demand remember? 2. pay it out of taxpayer's money, I mean, what are taxes for? War? Or, since we are on the hypothetical subject of food materializing out of thin air ... 3. recognize that once food can be materialized out of thin air, we wouldn't need money at all to live and hence, many of us would be free to invent, compose or just to enjoy life ;-)

by ap22213 13y ago

rjbwork 13y ago

>I know this first-hand because I grew up in poor Appalachia, in the US. There, property and ownership and rights were much differently understood than in metropolitan Virginia where I live now This sounds fascinating, could you elaborate on some of these differences? Both from a real property (land) and object property (trinkets, devices, food, etc) perspective?

ap22213 13y ago
It was more of a shared, collective kind of property model. People generally knew which things that people had and who currently had it. Generally, one would 'borrow' a thing indefinitely, until someone else 'borrowed' it. It wasn't uncommon for someone to 'borrow' a car, for example. You would just take it, if you needed it. It worked well, in that small culture of people. But, it certainly presented a lot of challenges for me as I left that area. It took me a long time to learn that that wasn't accepted behavior for middle-class urban people. For example, in college, people would come to my dorm, and I'd give them my stuff, not expecting that I'd get it back. Tensions would flare up when I'd 'borrow' other kids' stuff and then lend their stuff out to others. It took me awhile to understand that that was frowned upon. I also had to learn that I couldn't just take stuff. I was used to going to other people's houses and just eating their food, taking video games, music, etc. - Yeah, the middle-class urbanites didn't like that very much. Even now, I have strange understandings of property. I'm very likely to just give my stuff away, to even people that I don't know very well. Most people who witness this think it is very, very odd.
- driverdan 13y ago
  Are you sure you didn't come from a family of thieves? Have you discussed this with other members of your community, especially law enforcement?
- jofer 13y ago
  It's quite common in rural areas. I grew up in west TN, and the exact same sort of situation exists there. I've lived in Alaska for a bit, and it's ubiquitous there. (e.g. you _never_ lock a cabin, as someone might need to get in) A good example is chainsaws. Where I'm from, you heat with wood. Therefore, having a functioning chainsaw is a necessity. New chainsaws (or good ones, anyway) are fairly expensive, so you invariably have several ancient ones around that you're coaxing into functional shape. When you don't have anything working, you just go to a neighbor and borrow one. If someone asks for one, you loan them one that's working, even if it's the one you borrowed from your neighbor. The point being, you owe someone "a functioning chainsaw", not "that particular saw". It's effectively a communal pool of tools. To this day my parents usually don't pay when they buy groceries. They just write their name on the back of the receipt and pay the accumulated bill whenever they get around to it. Just a few years ago, nowhere took credit cards, so the stores all extended credit that way. People need to eat, and often don't have cash until the end/start of the month. Similarly, it's changed now, but growing up, the gas station left its pumps on at night. If you needed gas after the station was closed, you just pumped it and dropped in the next day to pay the bill. At any rate, you're very aware that you're a part of a community, even if your nearest neighbor is several miles away. People are fiercely independent and individualistic, but resources are treated somewhat communally. Of course, a lot of that is changing, but it's more true the more you move towards the "fringes" of society, in my experience. I knew folks who kept someone posted on the ridge to shoot at any car they didn't recognize (the sheriff literally called first when they had to respond to something or serve a warrant). At lot of methheads and a lot of folks on the run, but you'd never think twice about loaning them your truck or saw.
  - angersock 13y ago
    That sounds really nice, actually. So, where does it fall over?

belorn 13y ago

Lets talk about government actions like if they were property. Copyright is an deal for which my property (tax money) is used in a deal between authors. My property (tax money) in order to create and defend a monopoly, and in exchange I get to use the work after a limited time. However, the deal was changed over and over again, and now I will never, ever, see the other side of the deal. The written word evolve faster than copyright expires. Physical medium of movies and music deteriorate to dust, and the technology in programs will be obsolete and dead beyond recreation. Taking my money for this deal is stealing. The only way government can make me support copyright is by force, which is the current way it is supported. I consider this much more unethical than a person who ignores the copyright deal. I like that artistic people can live on their work. However, ask me to choose between that and respecting the copyright deal, and I will pick the lesser evil.

bad_user 13y ago

The problem with defining copyright infringement as stealing is one of reality. At its essence, the market works by supply and demand. Copyright is basically the government imposing a monopoly on a piece of work to limit the supply. That goes against the principles of a free market on so many levels and the only reasonable argument for it would be ... for the flourishing of the public domain. Can you make that argument right now? Of course you can't. Otherwise, if something is so cheap to copy, to build upon, why should it be illegal to do so? Technological advances happen leading to the destruction of business models like all the time. Copyright is basically legislature that protects the incumbents. Let me put it another way - if a machine was invented that basically materialized food out of thin air and poor people from Africa would copy the design, built it and produced food with it to feed themselves, would that be considered stealing from the inventor? What if they stole the food in question? What if the food they stole was produced by a machine out of thin air? Maybe the real problem is that our current economic and business models don't really work anymore ;-)

millstone 13y ago
What if the inventor couldn't get funding to do the research, because nobody was willing to pay for the product?
- bad_user 13y ago
  We could either: 1. accept that fact, supply and demand remember? 2. pay it out of taxpayer's money, I mean, what are taxes for? War? Or, since we are on the hypothetical subject of food materializing out of thin air ... 3. recognize that once food can be materialized out of thin air, we wouldn't need money at all to live and hence, many of us would be free to invent, compose or just to enjoy life ;-)