I have made this point somewhere else before, but I'll make it again here. Piracy is theft. You are enjoying the use of a product, information or service (e.g. entertainment) that someone else has worked hard, and likely spent money, on putting together. In remuneration of his efforts he wants to sell or rent out the resulting product or service. Guy's got to eat and all that. By making a copy or using said product, information or service without paying for it, you are depriving the producer of the remuneration for his hard work. Now you can argue that if you couldn't have pirated the product or service, you wouldn't have paid for it anyway, and that the producer still has the product or service to sell; so he has lost nothing. But by piracy you have gained something that someone else has worked hard for, and would like to have been rewarded for. To argue that a product or service is only worth what people are prepared to pay for it is a cop-out; if you don't think it's worth paying for, don't copy and use it. To put it in terms that you might relate to better: imagine you fix computers for a living. You trained for it (and paid for that training in time, money and effort), you bought the tools and reference manuals and you regularly spend time sharpening up on the latest developments in the computer repair trade. Someone asks you to fix their computer. When you have done so, they refuse to pay. They argue that they don't think that just fixing a few capacitors for five minutes is worth the fee you charge. You argue that you are charging for knowing of what parts to fix, a knowledge which takes years of training to acquire. They then argue that if they could not have got the computer repaired for free, they would have thrown it out anyway, and besides, they haven't actually taken anything from you: you still own the knowledge and tools required to fix computers and make a living at it. Except that you would feel robbed, no? But the customer then puts in the final twist of the knife: no-one is forcing you to make your living this way. He can see that it is beneficial to you to be paid each time you fix someone's PC, but he can't see how it is a moral entitlement (I'd like to see you try this one on in PC World or something. Seriously. I'd invite everyone in this thread around and I'd pay for the popcorn). If enough customers pull this stunt on you, of course you start thinking that you better find yourself a different way to make a living. You give up on fixing computers altogether. Society now ends up with a lot of broken computers and nobody to fix them. Marxism is all nice and fine but it does not work in societies greater than about 100 people where you start losing oversight of who dips more into the communal pool than contributing to it. So let's can that idea. In real life people want to experience reward for their efforts. Artists may make art for art's sake but they also want to eat --which is why their art often has eye-watering price tags. If people do not get rewarded, they give up investing the time, money and effort and society ends up losing out. As a result we get **** films and **** music aimed at exploiting the mass market for the least creative effort; we get **** craftsmanship because nobody wants to pay a quality skill what it is worth anymore, and we get draconian RIAA laws. EDIT: and although I'm not worthy, it's nice to be quoted alongside Ghandi.
Yet when you do the same by using the secondhand market noone blinks an eyelid and couldn't care less about the producer or their desire to be rewarded for the work you're using. To be honest it seems to me that most people's problem with piracy has got sod all to do with the issue of the creator of the work not getting paid and simply comes down to the fact that someone has got for free what they had to pay for. Most people couldn't care less about the creator's need to get paid, all they want to see is that money changed hands at some point but don't really care who that money goes to.
Not at all the case. A good second hand book store has a licenses to sell the works. I can't remember the term to describe the sale, but there is a legal way to do this. IIRC, the same holds true for movies and music. Edit: there is a blurb in most paperback novels that specifically says not to buy the book if the cover has been removed as the author has not received royalties for the sale. books with the cover removed have been declared destroyed. More to the point, there have been multiple posts that state that the laws as now written are overbearing and need to take more into consideration. and certainly the music and software industries, along side institutions like Getty images, need to do a better job of getting the proceeds (or at least a larger percentage) of sales into the artists' hands. There certainly needs to be a better system of putting the copyrights back into the hands of people who wrote the songs and scripts. However, no one is making them sell the copyrights and there have been some music artists that are making headway in this. It's a hard choice, but one that people make. BUT, that doesn't justify making copies of works that are in violation of the copyright. It means that communities need to make more of an effort to educate artists of their rights and the long term effects of their decisions.
You keep saying this, but you haven't said what my company should do in your opinion. We can't implement DRM as it'd be expensive, time-consuming and ultimately ineffective while possibly harming our sales, especially if something were to go wrong with it. So what would you do? Go ahead with DRM anyway, even though it has spectacularly failed for all other companies so far, and even harmed their sales? Sorry, but pragmatism is far more important than starry-eyed ideals.
re: fixing computers - it costs me in time each time I fix a computer. If someone were to watch me, learn my skills, and then make money fixing computers themselves, that would be a better analogy and I would be ok with that. re: piracy is theft: Enjoying the use of a product does not equal theft, taking something (so that the owner can no longer enjoy use of it) does. I understand that the creator would like remuneration, but that does not morally entitle them to it.
I can't quite believe people think this. So sneaking into the cinema without paying is not theft? You're happy with that, and if you can get away with it, that's cool, and from a moral viewpoint should be perfectly legal? You seriously believe this?
If the cinema isn't full (ie I'm not stopping anyone else seeing the film), then yes. If you think it's theft, you don't understand what theft is.
It's not a better analogy. Teaching and/or learning skills is not the same as using the product of someone's skills. Look, you joined BT to make the point that copyright infringement is justified. You refuse to listen to the real economics and effects it has on real people. You aren't going to change your mind, at least not to you get a job where you create something. Hopefully some day to will and someone will come along with the attitude you have and you'll see what the big deal is, but I doubt it. Until then, I may not have a moral right (in your mind) that entitles me to being paid, but I have a legal right. And that is what makes copyright infringement theft. It's been explained over and over, and you even have made the point yourself. At this point, you are either really slow or trolling. You don't have to like it, you can always move to a country where copyrights do not exist. Good luck with that. Yemen is nice, if you like quat and spicy food. Although the driving there is.....hair raising at best.
What you're doing, is taking the dictionary definition of a word, and then using that as the basis for law, so in your reality, if you are not taking a possession away from someone so they no longer have it, it can't be theft. Ok.. I'll play along with your pedantic, semantic game for a minute. Ok.. it's not "theft", but are you happy that what you are doing would be legal, above board, and morally correct? [edit]... also, if you take my car without my permission, drive around all night and bring it back unharmed, and with the same amount of fuel in it in time for me to go to work tomorrow, have you not stolen it? If so, you are a criminal, and above all, a troll. This guy only joined this forum to argue this point. Just ban his ass.. we don't want criminals in here.
Err no, it'd be the legal definition that means in reality if you're not taking a possession away from somebody then it can't be theft. Legally theft is defined as "a person is guilty of theft, if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it". There has to be the taking of property for theft to have occured. Arguably, under the legal definition of theft, no you haven't.
and where did you get your law degree again? Because, I'm fairly sure the "property" part of Intellectual Property can be stolen.
So you'd be happy to use that as a defence in court when I report my car as stolen, and the police find you driving around in it? Good luck with that. You have stolen my car. The fact that you bring it back is irrelevant. You can stand in court for as long as you like saying "The dictionary definition states that it's only theft if I deprive the owner of his use of the car" will get you nowhere. You still stole my car. All this is so much crap from people too mean to pay for stuff, and think it's fair to take anything they can get away with for free. One day someone will take something from you without your permission, and I can only hope you are as gracious in your indictment of them as you have demonstrated so far when they say "I was going to bring it back". Of course you won't be, because you're clearly a hypocrite. If I took something of yours without asking, you'd go ape.. just like anyone else would, and rightly so. So can we stop this ******** now please? I'd love to know where you live, because apparently I can use your car any time I like so long as I bring it back at a time convenient for you, and you would think I was morally correct in doing so. LOL. Grow up.
When you buy something second hand, the producer has already been rewarded by the fact that the product was previously bought first hand from him. When you buy a used DVD or book the publisher has already had their reward. The previous user is simply selling the product (or its licence to use it) on to you in turn. I don't think you would be. If you spent a lot of time, money and effort acquiring those skills and your living depends on them, I think you'd feel really resentful if someone just copied your skills and started competing with you for business. I think you'd start getting protective and want to charge tuition fees. What you describe is apprenticeship, and there is always a trade-off in terms of the trainee contributing labour in return for the opportunity to observe, learn and practice under experienced supervision. I think that you get too caught up in the physicality of a product. A product can also be a service or information. When a person sells or rents out a product it is to be remunerated for the investment and effort in producing and supplying the product, whether it is a thing, a service or information. That is the contract. That's the deal. When you take or use the product you implicitly agree to the deal. If you don't remunerate him you gain something but he doesn't; there is no fair exchange. You may argue that he does not lose anything either but that's sociopathic reasoning. The point is: you broke the deal. You got something that cost someone time, resources and effort to produce and gave him nothing in return, even though he made it explicit that this was a condition of taking or using the product. Now you'll have to decide for yourself how moral it is to break agreements; to take something but reneigh on the explicit agreement of exchange. You may think that there is no moral obligation, but a man is defined by his actions.
Well tell you what, go find a court case where someone who has downloaded something has been tried for theft as opposed to copyright infringement. How would the police find me driving around in your car if i'd returned it? You can't have it both ways, either your car is taken and returned or it's taken and not returned. Which is it you're trying to use in your example? As for the fact that you bring it back being irrelevant I fail to see how you can come to that conclusion when the law states that theft requires the intention to permanently deprive the owner of their property. It's not a dictionary definition, it's the law. Nice strawman argument, perhaps you'd like to point out where I said anything of the sort?
Maybe I wake up in the middle of the night due to chronic indigestion, can't get back to sleep, and think "I'll go for a drive while the roads are quiet". What then?. still not stolen because your INTENT was to return it? Or are you suggesting it's not a crime until you are caught? What if you did return it, but I still realised it HAD been stolen and returned... does the fact that you returned it negate the crime? Seriously mate, you're making yourself look like a cock. Just stop.
If someone downloads something without paying they have made no contract with the producer of the content concerned. Just putting something up for sale cannot constitute a contract between parties (surely all parties have to agree when a contract is made).
