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When have consumers ever cared if a firm makes such a costly product that it can't be profitable? Consumers will never care about that. Appeals to make them car

When have consumers ever cared if a firm makes such a costly product that it can't be profitable? Consumers will never care about that. Appeals to make them care about "manufacturing costs" are pointless. I think it's a little disingenuous to keep calling it "stealing." It's copyright infringement, and in my experience people have never felt as badly about doing it as compared to stealing. For instance, think back before digital books became popular: if you had a truly epic book of poems and you had several friends who wanted to read it and copies of the actual book were unusually difficult to procure, I think it used to be that many people would just run a large chunk of the book through a xerox machine without thinking twice. Similarly, I know people who used to get very into making custom mixed CDs as gifts for people. Copying an artwork has never been considered a crime on the level of stealing someone else's possession.

Illotus 12y ago
+1. The point about stealing is really good. It is really annoying tactic of trying to frame the issue as something other than it is. Other than that, in many countries (for example in Finland) you are allowed to copy movies and music for your own use (though according to the latest law you aren't allowed to circumvent copy protection). You can even let other people do the copying for you. This used to be really common for example in local university library where the librarians copied latest journal articles for whole bunch of people.
nwatson 12y ago
Pharmaceuticals: one product that's also costly to research and manufacture, and the firm that gets the magic compound first gets a couple of decades of monopoly. Plebs like us can't yet synthesize a copy of the medical product easily, so the pharmaceutical company has far fewer chokeholds to deal with to make sure no copies get out. Alas for media companies, copies are harder to manage. As for not calling it "stealing", but "copyright infringement" instead ... no! "Copyright infringement" would be distributing the media (in whole, part, or integrated into other product) to others as if you had the rights to do so. That's not what consumers of illicitly downloaded materials are doing. They're "stealing".
- clarry 12y ago
  If that is stealing, then stealing is a good thing. If everyone started stealing food, cars, electricity and fresh air in the same manner, all the world's food problems would be solved overnight. We'd have a practically infinite supply of everything.
  - unclebucknasty 12y ago
    Now, that is an interesting response that takes the discussion in an entirely different direction. What you are advocating is a wholly different game with a new set of rules. I actually question the current economic system, the outsized wealth it produces for some, and artificial scarcity it creates for others, etc. But, I think there's something between anarchy and a soulless brand of capitalism.
eddiedunn 12y ago
Calling it stealing is wrong. The producer of an item doesn't lose the original item when someone _copies_ it, compared to e.g. stealing somebody's car. At most, you could argue that the producer loses an opportunity for a sale, but I think you would have a difficult time proving that. It is far more likely that the potential consumer would just refrain from procuring the item if it were not available for free (as a copy).
- unclebucknasty 12y ago
  >Calling it stealing is wrong. The producer of an item doesn't lose the original item when someone _copies_ it, compared to e.g. stealing somebody's car. That really is a horrible rationalization. The producer of an item doesn't lose the original item? No, she simply loses all value that would have otherwise accrued to her, if not for people deciding that her right to be compensated for her creation was trumped by their right to enjoy her creation at no cost or inconvenience to themselves. So she loses the right to capture value from the thing she owns/created, while others derive value from it (whether for personal use or resale). Please tell me again. How is that not stealing? And, from where does the consumer derive that entitlement?
  - unprepare 12y ago
    It is not stealing because theres is nothing that the original owner had and now does not have. you could try to say that the person who downloaded something represents a potential sale lost, but i think its a bigger assumption than you are recognizing that the person would have ever paid for the property. the producer has in no way lost all the value of the property, they have simply lost 1 single potential purchase. I fail to see a material loss. Would you file an insurance claim if I broke into your house and made a copy of a dvd you owned? [if you think this is a bad example because of ip rights, change it to a picture you drew] by your logic, reselling an item you own is also theft, since that represents a potential lost sale to the original producer - do you agree with this or do you have some way to reconcile this?
    - unclebucknasty 12y ago
unclebucknasty 12y ago
Well, I find myself in a funny position, as I'm not much of a corporate/big industry apologist, so I don't really have a motive to be disingenuous. These questions are earnest head-scratchers for me. To answer your first question, consumers care about manufacturing costs every time they agree to pay the producer of a good the producer's asking price. But, this is not so much about caring about manufacturing costs as it is about respecting ownership rights. In any case, it's really splitting hairs to say that it's copyright infringement vs. stealing. In fact, I believe that making that distinction is what is disingenuous. To the extent that a copyright has value, it's because people respect that it represents ownership of a thing and, thus, the right to capture any value that the thing produces. When we don't respect that, then we have effectively taken any value from the creator for his/her creation. Meanwhile, we enjoy value from the creation, whether we use it for ourselves, re-sell it, or otherwise. How is that not stealing? I do get that people have always made a distinction between copyright infringement and stealing, but my question is why is that so? Actually, my original question extends further than that to ask, why is it that people additionally feel entitled to do so?
- capsule_toy 12y ago
  I think the key is that you're stating that fundamentally, copyright should have value. This is not a given. I can certainly imagine a society where copyright infringement is allowed and no value is given to copyright at all. I'm not saying I would want to live in that world, but it's definitely not the same as a world that allows stealing.
- ryanpardieck 12y ago
  Sorry I'm like a week late here, I don't check HN very frequently. It's not just "people" that distinguish between copyright infringement and stealing; the law does as well. I find it extremely odd that you're asking why people feel "entitled" to make a perfectly lawful distinction. It's my personal opinion that traditional ownership of property and the intellectual property afforded by copyright are such different concepts that all debate tends to collapse into incoherence once the concepts are taken to be the same. For things that I personally own, there is no idea of a "public domain," and my belongings are not temporarily granted exclusively to me for the good of the public. My macbook is my macbook, full-stop. Copyright, on the other hand, is a temporary monopoly on the distribution of a creation because, at some point in time, the state deemed it beneficial to the public to incentivize artists/creators/inventors with this kind of financial benefit. Why do we have any concept of a public domain if copyright and traditional ownership are perfectly interchangeable as ideas? Why is there no concept of "fair use" for my macbook or my car, but there is such a thing as "fair use" for any novel I might write? My personal take: there isn't really any analogous concept of "ownership" for most things that could be considered artworks or intellectual creations. I can be credited as the original creator, and I can attempt to control the distribution of physical manifestations of my artifact, but in what sense do I actually "own," say, the dirty limerick that I wrote? The only way I can truly own it is to simply never show it to a soul. But that's not very satisfying, is it? And yet it's perfectly satisfying to keep my macbook solely to myself ...

Illotus 12y ago

+1. The point about stealing is really good. It is really annoying tactic of trying to frame the issue as something other than it is. Other than that, in many countries (for example in Finland) you are allowed to copy movies and music for your own use (though according to the latest law you aren't allowed to circumvent copy protection). You can even let other people do the copying for you. This used to be really common for example in local university library where the librarians copied latest journal articles for whole bunch of people.

nwatson 12y ago

Pharmaceuticals: one product that's also costly to research and manufacture, and the firm that gets the magic compound first gets a couple of decades of monopoly. Plebs like us can't yet synthesize a copy of the medical product easily, so the pharmaceutical company has far fewer chokeholds to deal with to make sure no copies get out. Alas for media companies, copies are harder to manage. As for not calling it "stealing", but "copyright infringement" instead ... no! "Copyright infringement" would be distributing the media (in whole, part, or integrated into other product) to others as if you had the rights to do so. That's not what consumers of illicitly downloaded materials are doing. They're "stealing".

clarry 12y ago
If that is stealing, then stealing is a good thing. If everyone started stealing food, cars, electricity and fresh air in the same manner, all the world's food problems would be solved overnight. We'd have a practically infinite supply of everything.
- unclebucknasty 12y ago
  Now, that is an interesting response that takes the discussion in an entirely different direction. What you are advocating is a wholly different game with a new set of rules. I actually question the current economic system, the outsized wealth it produces for some, and artificial scarcity it creates for others, etc. But, I think there's something between anarchy and a soulless brand of capitalism.

eddiedunn 12y ago

Calling it stealing is wrong. The producer of an item doesn't lose the original item when someone _copies_ it, compared to e.g. stealing somebody's car. At most, you could argue that the producer loses an opportunity for a sale, but I think you would have a difficult time proving that. It is far more likely that the potential consumer would just refrain from procuring the item if it were not available for free (as a copy).

unclebucknasty 12y ago
>Calling it stealing is wrong. The producer of an item doesn't lose the original item when someone _copies_ it, compared to e.g. stealing somebody's car. That really is a horrible rationalization. The producer of an item doesn't lose the original item? No, she simply loses all value that would have otherwise accrued to her, if not for people deciding that her right to be compensated for her creation was trumped by their right to enjoy her creation at no cost or inconvenience to themselves. So she loses the right to capture value from the thing she owns/created, while others derive value from it (whether for personal use or resale). Please tell me again. How is that not stealing? And, from where does the consumer derive that entitlement?
- unprepare 12y ago
  It is not stealing because theres is nothing that the original owner had and now does not have. you could try to say that the person who downloaded something represents a potential sale lost, but i think its a bigger assumption than you are recognizing that the person would have ever paid for the property. the producer has in no way lost all the value of the property, they have simply lost 1 single potential purchase. I fail to see a material loss. Would you file an insurance claim if I broke into your house and made a copy of a dvd you owned? [if you think this is a bad example because of ip rights, change it to a picture you drew] by your logic, reselling an item you own is also theft, since that represents a potential lost sale to the original producer - do you agree with this or do you have some way to reconcile this?
  - unclebucknasty 12y ago

unclebucknasty 12y ago

Well, I find myself in a funny position, as I'm not much of a corporate/big industry apologist, so I don't really have a motive to be disingenuous. These questions are earnest head-scratchers for me. To answer your first question, consumers care about manufacturing costs every time they agree to pay the producer of a good the producer's asking price. But, this is not so much about caring about manufacturing costs as it is about respecting ownership rights. In any case, it's really splitting hairs to say that it's copyright infringement vs. stealing. In fact, I believe that making that distinction is what is disingenuous. To the extent that a copyright has value, it's because people respect that it represents ownership of a thing and, thus, the right to capture any value that the thing produces. When we don't respect that, then we have effectively taken any value from the creator for his/her creation. Meanwhile, we enjoy value from the creation, whether we use it for ourselves, re-sell it, or otherwise. How is that not stealing? I do get that people have always made a distinction between copyright infringement and stealing, but my question is why is that so? Actually, my original question extends further than that to ask, why is it that people additionally feel entitled to do so?

capsule_toy 12y ago
I think the key is that you're stating that fundamentally, copyright should have value. This is not a given. I can certainly imagine a society where copyright infringement is allowed and no value is given to copyright at all. I'm not saying I would want to live in that world, but it's definitely not the same as a world that allows stealing.
ryanpardieck 12y ago
Sorry I'm like a week late here, I don't check HN very frequently. It's not just "people" that distinguish between copyright infringement and stealing; the law does as well. I find it extremely odd that you're asking why people feel "entitled" to make a perfectly lawful distinction. It's my personal opinion that traditional ownership of property and the intellectual property afforded by copyright are such different concepts that all debate tends to collapse into incoherence once the concepts are taken to be the same. For things that I personally own, there is no idea of a "public domain," and my belongings are not temporarily granted exclusively to me for the good of the public. My macbook is my macbook, full-stop. Copyright, on the other hand, is a temporary monopoly on the distribution of a creation because, at some point in time, the state deemed it beneficial to the public to incentivize artists/creators/inventors with this kind of financial benefit. Why do we have any concept of a public domain if copyright and traditional ownership are perfectly interchangeable as ideas? Why is there no concept of "fair use" for my macbook or my car, but there is such a thing as "fair use" for any novel I might write? My personal take: there isn't really any analogous concept of "ownership" for most things that could be considered artworks or intellectual creations. I can be credited as the original creator, and I can attempt to control the distribution of physical manifestations of my artifact, but in what sense do I actually "own," say, the dirty limerick that I wrote? The only way I can truly own it is to simply never show it to a soul. But that's not very satisfying, is it? And yet it's perfectly satisfying to keep my macbook solely to myself ...