4 ms·

Is it, strictly speaking, possible to pirate a service?

Terr_ 12y ago
Strictly speaking, "piracy" means something involving international boundaries, planes/ships, and violence or coercion... But seriously (and colloquially) "piracy" is still not specific enough if you're asking a legal question. Do you mean only plain copyright infringement? Unlicensed use of spectrum with "pirate radio"? Secretly re-selling portions of you phone's data plan via tethering? Bypassing electricity-meters and wiring your house up to the grid directly? ...Abusing a promotional offer that says "one massage per person"?
pdabbadabba 12y ago
The product/service distinction is orthogonal to the relevant category in (U.S.) copyright law: the work. Only "works" can be copyrighted, but a work can be provided as part of a service, sold as a product, or one of any number of other possibilities. Nice try though. :)
- rdudek 12y ago
  But it's still a product! I can sum this up that all services are products but not all products are services. So if I were to publish a book which would classify as "work" which I can copyright. At this point, I have a product that doesn't exist yet other than a word document ready to be sent off to publishers. The publisher will take my "work" and print it out into a physical book which we can clasify as a product. They can also format it into a electronic version of the book which is also a product. Now, how the publisher can send it off to a service provider like Amazon Kindle to distribute it (that's a service)
  - masklinn 12y ago
    I assume pdabbadabba meant "sold as a good".
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  > Nice try though. :) Yesterday's XKCD immediately comes to mind. http://xkcd.com/1494/ http://xkcd.com/1494/
icebraining 12y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television_piracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television_piracy
blacksmith_tb 12y ago
Theft of services is a common enough occurrence (e.g. someone sneaking a bag of garbage into the dumpster of a business instead of paying for trash pickup).
wvenable 12y ago
Yes, happens all the time. In Canada there was a whole industry around freely acquiring satellite TV services from the US.

Terr_ 12y ago

Strictly speaking, "piracy" means something involving international boundaries, planes/ships, and violence or coercion... But seriously (and colloquially) "piracy" is still not specific enough if you're asking a legal question. Do you mean only plain copyright infringement? Unlicensed use of spectrum with "pirate radio"? Secretly re-selling portions of you phone's data plan via tethering? Bypassing electricity-meters and wiring your house up to the grid directly? ...Abusing a promotional offer that says "one massage per person"?

pdabbadabba 12y ago

The product/service distinction is orthogonal to the relevant category in (U.S.) copyright law: the work. Only "works" can be copyrighted, but a work can be provided as part of a service, sold as a product, or one of any number of other possibilities. Nice try though. :)

rdudek 12y ago
But it's still a product! I can sum this up that all services are products but not all products are services. So if I were to publish a book which would classify as "work" which I can copyright. At this point, I have a product that doesn't exist yet other than a word document ready to be sent off to publishers. The publisher will take my "work" and print it out into a physical book which we can clasify as a product. They can also format it into a electronic version of the book which is also a product. Now, how the publisher can send it off to a service provider like Amazon Kindle to distribute it (that's a service)
- masklinn 12y ago
  I assume pdabbadabba meant "sold as a good".
TeMPOraL 12y ago
> Nice try though. :) Yesterday's XKCD immediately comes to mind. http://xkcd.com/1494/ http://xkcd.com/1494/

icebraining 12y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television_piracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television_piracy

blacksmith_tb 12y ago

Theft of services is a common enough occurrence (e.g. someone sneaking a bag of garbage into the dumpster of a business instead of paying for trash pickup).

wvenable 12y ago

Yes, happens all the time. In Canada there was a whole industry around freely acquiring satellite TV services from the US.