[alive2007]

> if a movie company won't let me pay them to let me watch a movie/TV show via Steam, Netflix, or even from their own site, then I'll just watch it on Popcorn Time and it's their loss.

Right, except you don't have the right to do that. You have no carte blanche entitlement to access media or entertainment. If the executives at HBO figure that, financially speaking, it's in their best interest to keep new Game of Thrones episodes accessible to cable customers only, you have the right to not buy it and be frustrated at that and protest it until eventually enough people protest for HBO to budge.

What you don't have the right to do is then to circumvent the legal and technological system set up for you to purchase Game of Thrones and access it for free, which, yes, is fucking theft. I can hear the scoffing through TCP/IP.

And you're not just harming the company, you're not just harming the already rich suits at HBO. This is a classic case of tragedy of the commons. People figure getting their music for free is a more rational individual choice than paying $16 for a CD. Everyone then makes the decision to get their media for free. Who cares about those stupid record labels, anyways?

Suddenly, smaller markets around the world have their industry gutted by piracy, smaller labels have to shut down, bigger labels have to fire hundreds of less successful artists that they used to be able to support from the money they made on the more successful artists, the more successful artists have to stop relying on royalties from album sales and have to whore themselves out doing nonstop touring year-round for money. Thank God it's physically impossible to "pirate" concert tickets.

I know we're going on a tangent here, but people often falsely conflate open-source access to information and piracy into this one big, happy revolution against the evil gatekeepers and their evil transactions that involve my money. No. Piracy is just fucking theft, period.

[j42]

Actually, piracy is the act of forcefully commandeering another's maritime vessel; theft is the legal act of taking & depriving another of property, and I'm really not sure what "fucking" has to do with it at all.

Piracy is the correcting hand of the free market, where obtaining things for free is easier and less byzantine than by paid channels. Psychological research has proven time and time again that most people are willing to pay, but unwilling to have their personal rights trampled by draconian licensing and DRM.

Luckily your opinions, however misinformed, are irrelevant because anyone who understands this will never give up the fight. We understand how international trade deals and copyright law are being used offensively against the public, and we will not relinquish control over the devices we've rightfully purchased.

I'd suggest you get used to it. We're here to stay.

[johncolanduoni]

> Piracy is the correcting hand of the free market, where obtaining things for free is easier and less byzantine than by paid channels. Psychological research has proven time and time again that most people are willing to pay, but unwilling to have their personal rights trampled by draconian licensing and DRM.

No, the (ethical) correcting hand of the free market is not buying things, not deciding you are entitled to any entertainment content anyone produces.

> Luckily your opinions, however misinformed, are irrelevant because anyone who understands this will never give up the fight. We understand how international trade deals and copyright law are being used offensively against the public, and we will not relinquish control over the devices we've rightfully purchased.

Yes, if you rightfully purchase something, then I'll agree you have every right to skirt DRM if it is not letting you use what you purchased. But just stealing it outright is exactly how we've ended up with things like TPP and the DMCA, or Hollywood's relatively recent trend of spit-firing bad movies so they'll at least make something in the box office.

[j42]

I'm truly confused by your message, because your latter statement sounds as if you are in agreement?

No one (intelligent) is trying to make a moral argument for 'piracy' or media entitlement, but rather saying that there do exist circumstances where the letter of the law deserves to be ignored as it runs contradictory to the spirit.

The spirit of copyright law is to ensure rights-holders are fairly compensated, and the unfortunate confluence of many complex factors has precluded this.

Rights-holders are understandably scared of technology's ability to level the playing field (by increasing access and decreasing their exclusivity advantage), and thus far most have chosen the historically-impotent strategy of hardline enforcement over adapting services and creating new revenue streams. What bothers me is that they hold the artists out to the public and say "look at this poor starving fella," meanwhile no one has any idea that their new streaming-media licensing agreement entitles artists to ~2-5% of the total earnings generated.

I'm particularly sensitive to this issue because I work in ad-tech. People (myself ironically included) love ad blockers, and I'd argue it's for good reason. Unless the implicit contract between those monetizing and those consuming is respected, everyone loses in the arms race that follows. In our industry it's been adapt-or-die (create products that don't hurt the user's experience), and that's the way it should be. Thankfully nobody is lobbying in congress to stipulate how you may use your eyeballs.

Hollywood and Telecom have historically received unprecedented favoritism in this country, and it's possible we're all on the verge of paying the price. It will only continue to encroach upon our individual rights as society becomes increasingly digital.

I don't think anyone is entitled to anything for free, but I'm a realist and a pragmatist. I will reverse engineer and circumvent the things people say I can't until the day I die :)

[johncolanduoni]

My mistake! I thought by "piracy" being a corrective market force you meant "this has DRM, so I'll just not pay for it and download it somewhere else", not "this has DRM, but my [media player] isn't compatible, so I'll pay it and download it somewhere else." The second is a key part of my own content-consumption strategy ;)

> No one (intelligent) is trying to make a moral argument for 'piracy' or media entitlement

Alas, I've seen quite a few people in this thread make just that argument, and the unfortunate part is that many seem to be quite intelligent.

> I don't think anyone is entitled to anything for free, but I'm a realist and a pragmatist. I will reverse engineer and circumvent the things people say I can't until the day I die :)

Amen!

[alive2007]

>[something semantic and pedantic about maritime vessels vs taking other's property]

Piracy, or copyright infringement, or whatever the fuck you want to call it, and theft have the same practical effect : you're accessing a consumable good without paying the requisite cost, your individual crime may not have a large effect on the ability of the seller to provide for that good, but, on the large scale, if everyone committed your crime, you would severely affect the seller's ability to both 1. provide for him/her/their-self and 2. provide that good to the people. So, for all intents and purposes, yes, piracy is theft in cause & effect, if not in literal, philosophical definition.

I said it in my first post. If paid channels are byzantine and draconian, don't pay. You still don't have a right to the content. Just don't buy it. That's "fight" enough. That's "protest" enough.

>[some extremely condescending and pretentious teenage bullshit about "not giving up the fight"]

No, buddy, you're not on some morally righteous journey to freedom. Ironically enough, the DRM, DMCA, and the Gestapo-ification of the MPAA and RIAA only exist because of people like you. The executives and middlemen (i.e.: cable networks, record labels, publishers) hate piracy because it severely harms their bottom line, the artists hate piracy because it harms their livelihood, the consumers hate piracy because it leads to annoying DRM and other counterpiracy measures that end up harming paying consumers most. The only people that are lifting their fists in the air with you are, bingo, other pirates.

[j42]

I'm afraid you're misinformed, but for socially-conscious individuals (ie, they don't support a scorched-earth, ends-justify-the-means policy to get that $250,000* from your nephew for torrenting Inside Out) I'm including my comment below.

If you are a programmer, security researcher, artist, or entrepreneur you can make a difference.

1. As an individual: if you understand the methods, contribute to open-source tools that allow individuals to exercise their rights. https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools (one example)

Artists: Use self-publishing platforms (gumroad, bandcamp, even spotify...) and self-incorporate. Discriminate against giving your business to companies that don't support open, sane protocols. Don't let them exert their power against the populace through backdoor trade deals.

Entrepreneurs: Create new content delivery and streaming platforms that force the transition to digital--rightsholders like to claim that piracy is responsible for their failed economics, though the truth is that they had an artificial market advantage of scarcity. User-generated content has bloomed with the advent of digital, and more consumer choice is a death knell to the traditional monopoly.

2. As a cause: support the EFF, and any politician looking to work with the FCC who understands this issue is deeper than "restricting content," and could undermine the rights of property and security of ownership. Do not trust anyone who does not comprehend the societal implications of critical infrastructure being "security through obscurity." http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comment/view?id=60001303221

The security of your laptop, the concept of personal ownership, and your right not to be digitally inspected at over 40 international borders is at stake.

* figure revised to more accurately reflect the reality of the american justice system.

[Intermernet]

> you're accessing a consumable good without paying the requisite cost

"Consumable" would imply that the good is "Consumed". The traditional definition of consumption is that the good can't be consumed more than once. This definition has been altered in the digital age, but I think that's where the confusion arises.

A digital, infinitely copy-able good isn't really "consumed", as the copying doesn't actually reduce the original in any way, shape or form.

Perhaps "Observed" would be a better term?

[Karunamon]

You know what else has the same effect on the seller? Buying a $thing and having friends over to view it, or lending it to them.

That has the "same practical effect", yet the folks who like to moralize about copyright don't seem to have as much of an issue with that. (Though I'm sure the content industry would find a way to charge for this completely legitimate use if they could)

You still don't have a right to the content.

I place precisely zero value on your opinion on this matter because you lost most of this fight the moment the copy command was invented, and the idiocy behind the content industry lost the rest. This includes greatly exaggerated "losses", suing of computer-illiterate elderly people and network printers, perversion of the copyright system from something beneficial for the arts to a means of cultural control and profit above all else.

We're people, we can change the law however we see fit. I suggest it's time that we push this pendulum back in the other direction, and then snap it off.

[bweitzman]

The idea that illegally downloading or distributing copyrighted content is a fight against copyright laws is about as ludicrous as murderers fighting against all those killing laws.

[j42]

This.

Everyone should take note of the proper way to fight encroaching copyright law:

If you are a programmer, security researcher, artist, or entrepreneur you can make a difference.

1. As an individual: if you understand the methods, contribute to open-source tools that allow individuals to exercise their rights. https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools (one example)

Artists: Use self-publishing platforms (gumroad, bandcamp, even spotify...) and self-incorporate. Discriminate against giving your business to companies that don't support open, sane protocols. Don't let them exert their power against the populace through backdoor trade deals.

Entrepreneurs: Create new content delivery and streaming platforms that force the transition to digital--rightsholders like to claim that piracy is responsible for their failed economics, though the truth is that they had an artificial market advantage of scarcity. User-generated content has bloomed with the advent of digital, and more consumer choice is a death knell to the traditional monopoly.

2. As a cause: support the EFF, and any politician looking to work with the FCC who understands this issue is deeper than "restricting content," and could undermine the rights of property and security of ownership. Do not trust anyone who does not comprehend the societal implications of critical infrastructure being "security through obscurity." http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comment/view?id=60001303221

The security of your laptop, the concept of personal ownership, and your right not to be digitally inspected at over 40 international borders is at stake.

[fnordfnordfnord]

>No. Piracy is just fucking theft, period.

No, you don't get to redefine a word because you feel like it. "Piracy" is often wrong, but it is not theft (the owner is not deprived of the item).

[will_brown]

I am a lawyer...I know these definitions pretty well, so Ill chime in.

Let's take George Bernard's famous quote: “If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.” According to your definition, one could not engage in theft of an idea, because one could never be deprived of an idea like with the taking of an apple.

However, let's look at the actual legal definition of theft: The actus reus (act) of theft is usually defined as an unauthorized taking, keeping or using of another's property which must be accompanied by a mens rea (mental state/intent) of dishonesty and/or the intent to permanently deprive the owner or the person with rightful possession of that property or its use.

You limited the definition of theft to only include when one's mental state intends to deprive someone. The actual definition is not limited though, but alternatively includes when the taking was done dishonestly. Therefore, if someone takes something not belonging to them, and does so dishonestly that in fact is theft. Since I foresee the definition of dishonesty being the next issue here, that has been defined in case law, but generally where the person intended to take property they did not have a legal right to take.

[Karunamon]

You limited the definition of theft to only include when one's mental state intends to deprive someone.

As a lawyer, I'm surprised you are not familiar with the Dowling case, which is where that definition comes from. It wasn't pulled out of GP's ass.

[will_brown]

I am very familiar with the Dowling case. However, I assure you the definition of theft does not come from a case from 1985, the common law definition has been around quite a bit longer than 1985. There were a few issues on appeal, but most likely what you and GP are referncing has nothing to do with theft but a conviction under 18 USC 2314 which was over turned because the counterfeit goods in question being transported across state lines were not physical goods, and the court found there must have been a physical taking. This is not about theft, this is about 18 U.S. Code § 2314 - Transportation of stolen goods, securities, moneys, fraudulent State tax stamps, or articles used in counterfeiting, and under that very specific law of transporting goods, not theft, there has to be a physical taking.

[JoeAltmaier]

...and pursuing that line of argument right to the end, "intent to permanently deprive the owner...of that property". Clearly that part means, ideas are exempt from the possibility of theft, under the law?

[will_brown]

>Clearly that part means, ideas are exempt from the possibility of theft, under the law?

Lets try again, because while I used "idea" in the Bernard quote to demonstrate how non-physical can be taken without depriving the owner, GP was talking about more than an idea, but a digital good:

Act: An unlawful taking (idea or physical good)

Intent: 1. Dishonesty; (idea or physical good) OR 2. To permanently deprive (physical good only)

You would be right if the intent was only (2) with intent to permanently deprive as the argument, but that is not the case, it is OR (1) taking dishonestly.

Lets remove "ideas" and put it into perspective with a "good", for clarity. I steal your car and chop it up and sell for parts (a unlawful taking with intent to permanently deprive = theft); alternatively, I steal your car at night, go joyriding and return it in the morning before you even know (unlawful taking without intent to permanently deprive...would you say that is not theft? If so you would be wrong even though I never intended to permanently deprive, because it is an unlawful taking and my intent was dishonest = theft)

[fnordfnordfnord]

>I steal your car at night, go joyriding and return it in the morning before you even know (unlawful taking without intent to permanently deprive...would you say that is not theft?

I would say that is not theft. According to my lay-person's understanding of the law, what you've described is called criminal conversion.

I also remain unconvinced of your notion that copyright infringement is theft.

[JoeAltmaier]

Thanks, I carefully re-read and see that now. (Why I'm not a lawyer I guess!)

So, legal mental state must be a particular (non-intuitive) thing, because if the other posters on this thread think its not dishonest, then they're clear of any wrongdoing re: digital piracy. Right?

[will_brown]

Reread the very last sentence of my post:

> Since I foresee the definition of dishonesty being the next issue here, that has been defined in case law, but generally where the person intended to take property they did not have a legal right to take.

Intent is a legal term of art and not purely subjective mental state pursuant to the natural definition - so in this context it is fair to say mental state is non-intuitive.

Another example...if you throw your car keys at me and tell me I can take your car for the night, but unbeknownst to me it wasn't your car at all, then I would not have the mental state required to be convicted of theft because while I committed the act (unlawful taking) I did not have the mental state required (dishonesty in the taking or intent to permanently deprive). That would be true lack of intent, whereas, in your example there would be intent to take a digital good, but a moral objection/indifference to the law.

I recall in law school a student once told our Con Law professor, "I don't believe in Judges being appointed to the bench" and supported his position with 5-10 minutes of very strong arguments against the concept, at the end of the diatribe our Con Law professor simple said, "whether you believe in appointed Judges or not, I assure you they exist". The same would be true of laws, whether you believe in/support them or not, that does not negate their existence or ones intent of committing the act, to be distinguished from where one truly did not intend for the act to occur.

[tzs]

Terms such as "theft" and "steal" and similar words have meanings in English beyond the literal violation of a law. Some examples of stealing as correctly used in English:

• Someone says they do not like cats and have no interest in having one as a pet. A cute stray kitten shows up on their doorstep, they take pity and feed it. They fall in love with it and keep it. They might say that the kitten "stole" their heart.

• An actor playing a minor role in a play gives a performance that outshines the performance of the stars. Many would say that the actor "stole" the show.

• An employee of a rival company poses as a janitor to gain access to your lab and takes a photo of a whiteboard containing the formula for a chemical that is a trade secret in your manufacturing process. It would be common to say that the rival company "stole" your secret formula.

• When crackers gain access to a company's list of customer email addresses, passwords, or credit card numbers, it is commonly said that the data was "stolen".

• A team that has been behind since the start of the game but wins on a last second improbable play is often said to have "stolen" the game.

[0x49]

You are correct, it's not theft. It's counterfeiting, which is worse. If you steal a TV, it can be counted as a loss and the TV manufacturer can still sell TVs with little to no problems.

If enough people pirate, it changes the perceived value of a digital good to $0 or near $0 and will eventually put the person out of business. The big businesses can handle it just fine. The small companies are the ones you are hurting.

The app store, while not pirating, is a good example of this. Apps are no 99 cents. If you try to make an app more expensive than this, people generally will complain or not buy it at all. Why? Because the perceived value of an app is 99 cents.

It's very similar to the principals of currency.

[vezzy-fnord]

"Piracy" isn't counterfeit because pirates have no intention of defrauding or deceiving anyone (you're confusing them with bootleggers). Nor is the media they offer in any way a forgery. It's the authentic product, perhaps undergoing augmentation (i.e. to disable copy protection) or some lossy compression when transcoding video or audio. These are not equivalent to forgery.

[ge0rg]

> Apps are no 99 cents.

Anecdotal evidence here, but I have a successful app on Google Play (which is commonly viewed as a less-willing-to-pay audience) at 5$+, despite the fact that the app is FOSS and you can download the binary from the home page: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.aprsdroid....

[alive2007]

People often use this very semantic, very pedantic difference and expand it to make it a difference in practical effect. Piracy and theft have the same practical effect : you're accessing a consumable good without paying the requisite cost, your individual crime may not have a large effect on the ability of the seller to provide for that good, but, on the large scale, if everyone committed your crime, you would severely affect the seller's ability to both 1. provide for him/her/their-self and 2. provide that good to the people. So, for all intents and purposes, yes, piracy is theft.

[bweitzman]

What about theft of services or trade secrets? Are those not kinds of theft?

[baldfat]

Piracy is theft, but I suspect that most things downloaded would have never been purchased by the person in the first place.

If you take a copy of an item you would have purchased you just took the income.

[vezzy-fnord]

Digital goods are fundamentally non-excludable and non-rivalrous (sometimes anti-rivalrous, as with software). Thus the semantics of "theft" do not apply. At worst it would be free-riding, which has different implications.

[rhino369]

The idea that theft has to include rivalrous good is a strawman. You are just taking the difference between theft you don't like and pirating and then saying that difference is hugely important.

[vezzy-fnord]

Hey, it isn't me making straw man arguments. It's the SCOTUS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowling_v._United_States

Face it, you're a fringe view.

[baldfat]

That deals with only one criminal law: http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/18/I/113/2314

The code is:

> Whoever transports, transmits, or transfers in interstate or foreign commerce any goods, wares, merchandise, securities or money, of the value of $5,000 or more, knowing the same to have been stolen, converted or taken by fraud; or ....

[baldfat]

> Thus the semantics of "theft" do not apply

The semantics of "theft" absolutely do apply

Definition of theft: the act or crime of stealing.

Definition of steal: to take (something that you are not supposed to have) without asking for permission. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stealing

So the people trying to get through the not stealing it is copying due to a technical definition of theft are wrong. Stealing is having a copy that you didn't get permission to take.

My other ethics brain is wondering how NOT taking property but a copy seems to also allow sneaking into a movie theater, concert or sporting event to watch something. You are neither taking anything or even copying you are just watching. Is this also not theft?

[vezzy-fnord]

In which case properly delineating what "asking for permission" is becomes increasingly intractable. I have all sorts of images in my thumbnail cache that my browser has downloaded which nominally I do not have permission to keep, but are unavoidable artifacts of using the web via a graphical browser. Indeed, the lines of what is and is not implicit consent are very blurred. Not to mention that merely not being supposed to have something under a set of terms says nothing of the legitimacy of said terms.

[oberstein]

A lot of companies have provisions in their EULAs to allow for copies stored in RAM or by the browsers, e.g. http://storedvalue.com/en-US/terms-and-conditions and I believe streaming services are doing that as well since going to the monitor will require making copies and transforms of the data from the network. It's all pretty funny until someone gets sued.

[sigsergv]

No it's not. Theft is absolutely different type of crime.

[baldfat]

Read my reply where I start with

> Thus the semantics of "theft" do not apply

[Lawtonfogle]

>Right, except you don't have the right to do that.

You say they don't. They say they do. The law may agree with you right now, but then there are places where the law still allows for slaves, so I wouldn't put any weight in what the law says.

>Piracy is just fucking theft, period.

No it isn't. Exclamation mark. ! > .

[bweitzman]

That's an insane logical fallacy you have there.

I don't agree with the law in other parts of the world, therefor I don't need to respect the law in the part of the world where I live?

[planfaster]

I don't agree with laws - they are nothing but opinions backed by guns - therefore I don't need to respect any law in any part of the world - I need only respect reasoned arguments that I can agree with.

Respecting laws is no different from accepting bullying. I respect murder and rape laws not because they are laws but because the arguments against killing win over those for killing, and the arguments against rape win over those for rape.

But the arguments against piracy lose to the arguments for piracy.

[vezzy-fnord]

This is correct. Laws only have significance in so far as those subjected to them have agreed to a consensus, and if there is sufficient investment in enforcing these laws.

[andrepd]

I'm sure that Jack the ripper thought those murder laws very stupid indeed and that he very much disagreed with the arguments against murdering prostitutes. According to your argument, would it be fine for him to kill, seeing as "laws are nothing but opinions backed by guns"?

[Lawtonfogle]

>Would it be fine?

According to what/whom?

The law: no, that was illegal.

Reality: reality never stopped Jack.

To the victims or their loved ones: no, but it wouldn't have been fine even had it be legal back then. The law had nothing to do with if they thought it was fine or not.

To me: I wasn't there back then, my opinion back then didn't exist either way.

To put it simply, that what Jack did was wrong has nothing to do with it being illegal.

[planfaster]

> Jack the ripper thought

It's not about what someone thinks. It's about arguments and principles that can be applied universally.

> he very much disagreed

It's not about disagreeing with arguments. It's about refuting arguments to show them wrong.

I am less sure than you are that Jack the Ripper has ever produced refutations to the universalized principled arguments against the initiation of force that so many have written about through the ages.

According to my argument, it would be fine to use lethal force against Jack the Ripper initiating violence, since it is morally OK to use violence for self-defense (according to universal arguments, meaning that all participants can abide by this principle without contradictions arising).

Without wanting to sound condescending, the difference between what I am saying and what you think I said is that you think I am considering the ego of the persons involved. What Jack the Ripper's ego "thinks" and "agrees with" is irrelevant. What is relevant is facts that don't involve the ego - namely, did Jack the Ripper produce a universalized principled argument to justify his actions? The answer, so far as I know, is no.

It's not about what an ego thinks, it's about whether an argument exists.

[bweitzman]

Well here's a universalized principled argument against piracy:

Given that a content creator is only able to sustainably (i.e. without going broke) create content provided that they have an income, and given that creating content takes enough time that it is infeasible to both create content and earn income from another source at the same time, then a content creator must be able to earn income from their content if they are going to create it sustainably.

Given that consumers want content from content creators whose content they have enjoyed in the past, and given that a content creator must be able to earn income from their content if they are going to create it sustainably, content creators should be able to earn income from their content

Given that when a person pirates (or otherwise obtains for free) content the content creator earns no income from their content if everybody were to pirate content, content creators would earn no income from their content

Given that if everybody were to pirate content, content creators would earn no income from their content and given that content creators should be able to earn income from their content then not everybody should pirate content

Given that if not everybody should perform an action then nobody should perform the action, and if not everybody should pirate content then nobody should pirate content.

[andrepd]

>It's not about what an ego thinks, it's about whether an argument exists.

I find it extremely ironic that you are making that point. What you are doing is precisely declaring a law about a complex and controversial issue to be invalid because there is an "universal and absolute argument" (aka, you think so) against that law. That's not how things work. Why would the things Jack the ripper thinks and agrees with be irrelevant and yours be "universalized arguments" that everyone must accept?

EDIT:

>According to my argument, it would be fine to use lethal force against Jack the Ripper initiating violence

Precisely. According to your argument. Not a universal truth.

[bweitzman]

FWIW, I meant respect as in follow, not to agree with or to look upon with reverence.

Anyways, I'm not saying that the conclusion is wrong, just the argument

[Lawtonfogle]

If I follow a law depends on a cost/benefit analysis of breaking the law and how I morally feel about the action. Most laws I never desire to break, so it is not a problem. For those I do, it is a matter of what is the chance of being caught and the penalty, and if I find moral issue with doing that action. Every time you choose to go 58 in a 55, you are doing the same thing.

[bweitzman]

Sure, I don't disagree.

The thing that just boils my blood is people talking about how they are entitled to pirate content because content creators don't make it available in the way they want it. If you want to pirate stuff, that's your business. Just don't try to justify it.

[Qwertious]

No, saying "X is illegal/legal therefore it is immoral/moral" is a logical fallacy. As the above user said: In some places, slavery in some places is legal, and by your logic it is therefore moral; however, we all agree that slavery is immoral (apart from the places it's legal, that is), QED your logic is flawed. Argumentum ad Absurdum.

What the above user is saying, is: Suppose congress passed a law saying "X is illegal". Does that mean that X is immoral? The answer is clearly no, because congress passes all sorts of idiotic/insane laws.

[bweitzman]

I never said "X is illegal/legal therefore it is immoral/moral", and I don't agree with that sentiment.

consider:

x ∈ X x ∈ I X ⊆ L Y ⊆ L therefore ∀ y ∈ Y, y ∈ I or even just ∃ y ∈ Y, y ∈ I

that doesn't make any sense.

That's basically what Lawtonfogle was saying, where X is some other country's laws, Y is our country's laws, L is the set of all laws, and I is the set of immoral laws. The fact that slavery is legal somewhere else only proves that's it's possible for a bad law to exist. Doesn't mean that we have bad laws in our own countries (which of course we do, however)

[Lawtonfogle]

'Need to respect' meaning what?

Do I follow the law so I don't get in trouble? Yes.

Do I use the law to decide what rights people have? No.

The law is only relevant because there are people who choose to enforce it with violence, it has no place among a discussion of morals, ethics, or rights.

[SlimXero]

>No. Piracy is just fucking theft, period.

Tell that to the cable companies and radio stations that got their start the same way. Nearly every major media distribution channel in this country at least was founded on piracy. [Source: http://goo.gl/fN62uy]

[alive2007]

I'm not saying piracy has had no part in a positive change in society. I know that, without Napster, stuff like iTunes and Spotify couldn't exist. I know that Spotify itself started out with a repository of pirated music. I know that many cable companies and radio stations just started off by illegally rebroadcasting other networks' content.

The recurring pattern is that these people committing acts of piracy had a larger goal/conclusion in mind. They often ended up legally servicing and selling media and entertainment on a far larger scale than they ever illegally stole it. These people didn't have the resources and content to go about their business otherwise, and saw fit to commit acts of theft in the short-term to convince people that the core of their structure was worth getting access to content legally. The vast majority of pirates don't have such ambitions. They just want free movies.

[npongratz]

> The recurring pattern is that these people committing acts of piracy had a larger goal/conclusion in mind.

So an action by the likes of a nascent Spotify, cable company, or radio station (or whomever) is OK as long as the long-term ends justify the short-term means?

> The vast majority of pirates don't have such ambitions. They just want free movies.

How do you know what they want? Can you read each of their minds?

[JoeAltmaier]

Agreed; I'd also dispute that the existence of early pirates gated the creation of other later (legitimate) businesses. The pirates might have shown folks what was possible, a little earlier than would otherwise have happened. But they did not possess any superior imagination or initiative. It would have happened in a different way.

[SlimXero]

Furthermore, let's not say that copying an ebook is the moral equivalent of storming a vessel, murdering and raping everyone onboard, plundering the remains and then sinking the thing into the sea. Let's just agree that those two are separate things.

[SlimXero]

^ I don't subscribe to the idea that it's not ok in the first place.

[rakoo]

That doesn't make it ok.

[AngrySkillzz]

It's not theft; it's not even piracy. It's copyright infringement.

[davexunit]

Exactly. Let's not conflate sharing (making exact copies) with theft or the real meaning of piracy. It's copyright infringement, and we should be promoting works that fight against the copyright regime using Creative Commons licensing and other such free culture licenses. At at the very least we should reject DRM.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Piracy

[WalterBright]

For better or for worse, the 'real' meaning of words is what people intend them to mean when they use them. Piracy currently means copyright infringement.

Language is not fixed, the meanings of words shift all the time.

[gvozd]

And the word "piracy" has been applied to unauthorized copying of books since at least 1735. I own an old copy of the London Magazine that contains the usage.

[oskarth]

If you want to get to the truth of something, you might want to entertain alternative viewpoints. Just because you are emotional about it doesn't make you right. Now you can choose to ignore what's happened in the last few decades and continue on with your stubborn view, but chances are you'll turn out to be wrong. If you want to have a more nuanced view of things, here's some reading for you: http://paulgraham.com/property.html

[bweitzman]

The irony is that we do charge for smells, it's called perfume, and it can be quite expensive

[Qwertious]

Not exactly - after the perfume is sold, the person wearing the perfume gives out the smell for free, and nobody tries to charge people for smelling the worn smell.

Obviously the bottle of concentrated smell costs money, though.

[bweitzman]

yes and no. When a person buys perfume, they don't care about the actual chemical makeup of whatever liquid is in the bottle, they care about the scent (and possibly brand associations). I would call that paying for the smell. The smell happens to come with an implied license for distributing it in small quantities in public :)

[ajuc]

I hereby declare that reading this comment below that line will be theft. --------------------

If you read this, you are a thief, you just stolen that information from me. Do you agree?

Arguing about labels is stupid, but so is misusing a word for financial gain.

[jenscow]

Sorry. Here, have your information back:

-----------

If you read this, you are a thief, you just stolen that information from me. Do you agree? Arguing about labels is stupid, but so is misusing a word for financial gain.

[ajuc]

I wonder if WB and Sony are OK with piracy as long as I return the "stolen" thing afterwards.

But seriously, even if piracy is theft, it's a different kind of theft, so arguing "oiracy is theft, theft is bad, therefore piracy is bad" is still a bad argument. It would be the best, if everybody focused on the actual matter at hand instead of pointless arguments by associacion.

[PopeOfNope]

Right, except you don't have the right to do that.

Which means nothing. Whether people have the right to or not, they can do it with absolutely no personal repercussions, so they do. Lecturing and ranting and wishing things were different isn't going to change that.

[alive2007]

I know, it just ticks me off when people act like they're on some fucking morally righteous journey of freedom against the evil companies, and not just finding a sleazy way to get free movies like every other broke college kid.

[vezzy-fnord]

Has it ever occurred you to that the majority of modern Western culture hasn't been grassroots for a very long time, and instead is largely a product manufactured by an industry? Denying people access to it because of constraints like income or geographical proximity is to make them culturally illiterate, and it goes well beyond "free movies".

[planfaster]

> Right, except you don't have the right to do that.

That's true, but since when does that matter? The government doesn't have the right to do a bunch of things they do. So what?

> Suddenly, smaller markets around the world have their industry gutted by piracy, smaller labels have to shut down, bigger labels have to fire hundreds of less successful artists [...]

Similar and worse things happen when you increase the minimum wage. Why should I stop illegally downloading mp3 files by listening to your side's argument if you side usually will stop listening when I make the same arguments about increasing the minimum wage?

That's the beauty of this. By downloading mp3 files I'm actually getting back at everyone that doesn't care to learn economics enough to be against the minimum wage.

[wehadfun]

In 1999 if you bought a CD and scratched it, your choices were buy another CD at full price or not listen to the music that you "bought the rights for". If we were buying rights the whole time then we should have been able to take scratched CDs to the record store and got a new copy for free or deeply discounted. Record companies/Hollywood didn't start claiming this rights crap until Shawn popularized separating content from physical media. If piracy is "just fucking theft" then every broken CD, tape, ... that record companies refused to replace is theft as well

[andrepd]

>Suddenly, smaller markets around the world have their industry gutted by piracy, smaller labels have to shut down, bigger labels have to fire hundreds of less successful artists that they used to be able to support from the money they made on the more successful artists, the more successful artists have to stop relying on royalties from album sales and have to whore themselves out doing nonstop touring year-round for money.

There is no evidence whatsoever for that end-of-world scenario of yours.

[Ace17]

> "Piracy is just fucking theft, period."

Why are "piracy=theft" people always angry?