[LocalH]

Do you think that people should be required to view websites as delivered, without modifying them in any way? That would be the logical end of attempting to prevent this kind of "stealing".

If there is another term you'd like to use for "looks like theft, but the original owner loses nothing" then feel free. But it is not theft or stealing, those require also depriving the rightful owner of the stolen property.

If I could duplicate the exact contents of your car, would it still be "stealing" if I did so? Reminder that you would continue to be in possession of 100% of the contents of your car. Maybe with regards to any digital data on any duplicated devices, I could see a bit of the "stealing" logic, then again nothing was actually "stolen" from you if you still have 100% of your original property, but I now also have duplicates of that property.

[picardythird]

If I walk in to a record store and buy a CD, I'm not just paying for the paper and plastic that it's made of. I'm paying the record company, the record store, and the artist for their time and talent.

With a digital goods, we can eliminate the paper and plastic. It's a great thing! But for some reason, we've also decided to write the artist out of the equation too. At least if you're a pirate.

If you're a software engineer, you're being paid not to manufacture hard goods but to create something of intellectual value that could be technically be duplicated forever. What's the difference between pirating music and stealing code that is under a software license?

[webmaven]

> What's the difference between pirating music and stealing code that is under a software license?

If by "stealing code" you mean creating and distributing (probably selling) software derived from it that violates the license, it is quite different.

If what you mean is simply downloading warez for your own use, it is more or less the same.

[picardythird]

So are you against torrenting copyrighted digital goods then? Because people do exactly that. They steal intellectual property and distribute it for other people to use.

Stealing for personal use may be a more minor thing, but it still boggles me that people want to consume the fruits of others' labor without compensating them in anyway, as if creators are slaves who exist only to please.

[webmaven]

I made no claim about the relative morality of piracy vs. license violations.

But I will note that you are (by using the framing of "stealing") implying that piracy results in lost sales, which is largely not the case, except possibly for the most popular works. See "Piracy is Progressive Taxation":

https://www.oreilly.com/content/piracy-is-progressive-taxati...

[picardythird]

If a publisher or author doesn't mind, as is the case with the article you linked, that's fantastic. O'reilly is a good business. But it's still stealing. I think if you have the money, you should pay for the product. It's one thing for a teenager to download a bunch of songs on Kazaa in 2000. But I don't understand why so many self respecting adult knowledge workers feel the need to pirate things they can afford just because they can. Seems entitled and disrespectful to me.

[webmaven]

You're still not getting it. It doesn't matter if the publisher minds or not; copying is not theft:

https://freakonomics.com/2012/04/copying-is-not-theft/

[witrak]

The whole publishing business is effectively a service of providing content created by the author to final users. And because of the uneven power of authors and publishers, the latter is able to grab almost 100% of the price paid by people. Music labels are used to pay artists after long lawsuits. These are the best cases. Scientific publishers do more: they require payments from authors too and don't pay reviewers.

In all cases, the price paid by the user is split in proportion which clearly shows that saying that "pirating" means stealing money from authors is utterly false. I have nothing against paying for books the amount really passed to authors plus some additional fair amount based on the true cost of distribution (eg. printing and transport or electronic storing and transfer) plus a modest profit. However, it is not the case nowadays.

Similarly, I would accept payments for articles in a model where the price for a good article wouldn't cover the costs of many worthless ones. The current model - subscription - is attempting to hide real costs of production of articles of very different value under average price forcing readers to purchase wholesale products. Why should one pay for "fillers" the same money as for good content?