False premise - theft is taking something that you haven't paid for, whether it's a copy or the original. Copyright law people... read it.
But under UK law you wouldn't be charged with theft, you would be charged with copyright infringement, which is a civil matter not a criminal one. They're two very different things.
Yeah no matter whether you condone it (which I don't generally), piracy is theft in neither legal nor practical terms.
Splitting hairs - theft is theft whether you call it copyright infringement or stealing, and that's precisely why copyright law is in place. If there was nothing to steal, why would there be such a law?
Seriously do we have to do the 'is piracy theft or not' discussion again? It's been done to death so many times and it always ends up the same way. There's never going to be an agreement about the matter and some people are always going to insist that it's theft regardless of anything that is discussed. Because there's things to copy, hence the name 'copyright'.
And people are always going to insist that it's not theft, to make them feel better about doing it. That's stupid - copyright is in place not to prevent copying but to prevent illegitimate coyping, which is theft. If somebody takes one of my photographs and doesn't pay for a licence, I still have the original but they have made a copy illegitimately which equates to having stolen a copy. Not theft? Lol.
Or because it's simply not theft and some people can actually make that differentiation without condoning the act. Piracy can be seen to be bad without turning it into something different than what it is you know.
It's still taking something which isn't yours, since you didn't have permission to copy it, so it sounds like theft to me. In the end doesn't really matter, still wrong. (not that I'm innocent)
So if i were to come round to your house in the middle of the night, somehow create an exact copy of your car and then drive off in said copy i'd have stolen your car?
It is a ridiculous analogy indeed, but a common "defence" lol. It's worth mentioning this for clarification: When you buy a car, you buy THE CAR. When you buy software, you do not actually buy "the software" but rather A LICENCE TO USE THE SOFTWARE. If you use the sofware without buying the licence, you have effectively stolen it.
But it does illustrate the fundamental difference between piracy and theft. While it may be a crude analogy, you can't go round calling something theft just because you think it should be, or because it seems right. That's why we have different laws for different things.
If you copied my number plate, then put it on your car you have stolen my identity, thus theft. The clue is in STOLEN, as in taken without permission!
So the basic premise of the OPs argument is that the staff at game development companies need to make amazing games while earning virtually no money from their jobs?
As smc8788 the point of the analogy was to illustrate the difference between piracy and theft using a very simple situation. The fact that it's not possible to create an exact copy of a car while it's sitting on a driveway is inconsequential to the point of the analogy.
As posted on the previous page... The action or crime of stealing is taking another persons property without intent to return the goods. By definition, it is WRONG to call it theft as stealing what the developers/publishers already had (were paid to make the game) and then saying piracy is theft which is the profit they make from selling the game is not tangible.
I disagree with the term property, identity theft is a theft that is not a property theft. Theft is taking something that does not belong to you without appropriate recompense, in my opinion that applies to software, films, music, my car or my dog.
And you're entitled to have your opinion but just thinking that something is theft doesn't make it so.
