[28304283409234]

Say one counterfeits a hundred dollar bill perfectly. Does he steal? Say he is able to do this in large quantities. Does he steal? You still have you hundred dollar bill. No loss to you right? Wrong. Your money’s worth is lessened by the counterfeiting, the copying. That is what they mean by stealing: you are decreasing the value of their products by providing identical copies outside of their control.

[idle_zealot]

You're right that counterfeiting devalues currency, but that doesn't make it stealing. Nobody would refer to counterfeit currency as "stolen".

[28304283409234]

Alrighty. So copying movies is fraud. Not theft or piracy.

[gpm]

Fraud involves lying, copyright infringement doesn't necessarily.

Copying movies is copying things congress said you can't, a crime distinct from both theft and fraud.

Piracy has for whatever reason been co-opted to refer to copying despite that having no relationship to piracy on the high seas, but no one is playing linguistic games to argue that they're the same thing so whatever.

[hooverd]

It's only fraud if you sell them as genuine?

[maweki]

By that definition, whenever I create (on my own) a product that is both superior and cheaper than a competitor's offering, lessening the value of their product, it is stealing.

[growse]

There are actually people who reason like this. I remember being struck by this attitude when reading Bloomberg's book - effectively morally eqivocating business competition with stealing food out of their children's mouths.

[Sakos]

Unfortunately, businesses actually think this way. See any number of lawsuits based on this kind of thinking.

[28304283409234]

This is exactly what people are saying about any number of innovations!

[jonhohle]

If Alice breaks Bob’s leg, does she steal his mobility? Sure, but criminally she’d be charged with assault or battery or both.

Likewise, the legal definition of theft or stealing does not apply to copyright infringement despite decades long campaigns to get the public to believe that to ge the case. Relatedly, there are similar campaigns to redefine violence as something that offends someone.

[Trombone12]

Since value is only defined by what people are willing to pay for it, and lacking any extra common rules, these acts of copying simply signal not accepting the demanded price: so the value claimed by the owner was not the actual value, thus they have lost only their self-deception about the value.

[npoc]

If you've managed to create a perfect hundred dollar bill then you've done nothing different to what the bank did. Are both of you stealing?

One way of looking at it is that the banks didn't have to expend a tiny fraction of $100 worth of effort to obtain the dollar bill, whereas any normal person would have to. The question is does the bank deserve that $100? Especially at a cost to everyone else (who are largely unaware/tricked).

Personally I'd class that as "fraud" but it all comes under a similar umbrella.

Theft is taking something you don't deserve, without the other party's consent.

Fraud is taking something you don't deserve, with the other party's _misplaced_ consent.

So yes, in the case of copying music for example, I agree - you're copying someone's idea, which is essentially taking the product of their work without their consent. Their work is no longer scarce, and so loses half its value. It's not really any different to stealing half the money they've worked for, other than that it seems almost impossible to stop you without creating paradoxes such as this topic.

It's detrimental as they no longer have the same incentive to do that work and so society doesn't progress.

You've taken the reward from the person that did the work and shared it amongst the whole of society who didn't work for it. It's pure socialism - and we can see the effects of it in the quality of modern music.

[tacocataco]

Banks wish money into existence with fractional reserve banking. Sounds like counterfeit to me!

[28304283409234]

No, it is lawful. So not stealing. That is illegal. It may not be fair though. But it is lawful. Complain to your liberal government rep.