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Yes, and it should be punished under theft.

Yes, and it should be punished under copyright law.

Yes, but it shouldn't be punished.

Certain cases are crimes.

I feel ambivalent towards piracy being a crime.

No, but it should be punished.

No, it is a natural part of a consumer's routine.

No, not at all.

Other

Don't Care / View Poll

[Armok]

All those things are artefacts of failure to comunicate and cooperate properly. If you have nothing to hide...

[Sir Pseudonymous]

Because it's not taking anything. It is, quite literally, asking someone what the content in question looks like, and reproducing it on your own machine. Trying to label that "theft" would be like trying to label "creating, at your own labor and expense, an exact copy of a given car, by asking someone who owned one what it looked like" as "grand theft auto".

[LeoLeonardoIII]

People who talk about theft, are actually talking about those two things: acquisition of a good, and deprivation of the good of the original owner.

But piracy doesn't do both of those things. It just involves acquisition, with no deprivation.

Now the original owner has copyright over the thing, so if you copy it without authorization you don't deprive the owner but you do acquire a copy. Piracy is synonymous with copyright violation. Or more accurately, violation of intellectual property.

But the framers of the debate, the ones who can afford commercials on TV and movies and the radio, realize that "violation of intellectual property rights" doesn't have enough punch. They need to use other words to get people riled up. People don't care about copyright or intellectual property, because most of us don't produce things that fall under those. But everyone has property of some kind, and so we all understand theft.

But when the RIAA creates an ad that says piracy is theft, they're telling you piracy does both acquisition and deprivation. But it doesn't; it just does acquisition.

But we don't care about the laws relating to theft. They don't accuse you of murder if you steal a bike. Why would they accuse you of theft if you violated a copyright? They are different crimes.

Now one might argue that the acquisition of goods means a "lost sale" and in that way it's theft. Wrong. Copyright violation already includes that assumption of lost sale.

Copyright violation = piracy.

Theft does not enter the picture. There is no reason to talk about it.

[MrWiggles]

definr.com/take

     7: take something or somebody with oneself somewhere; "Bring me
        the box from the other room";  "Take these letters to the
        boss"; also metaphorical, as in "This brings me to the
        main point" [syn: bring, convey]
     8: take into one's possession; "We are taking an orphan from
        Romania"; "I'll take three salmon steaks" [ant: give]

You aren't "taking" anything. You are making a copy of it.
Also, in the case of torrents/file sharing, you have their consent.

How are you not taking? How can you come into possession without taking? You have the definition right there in the quite. Into one possession.

And yes, the leecher has a passive permission of the seeder. So I suppose I must change my earlier statement;

The seeder is in violation of copyright law (and depending on the amount, it can be gross) [also assuming he is seeding a legally gain copy, if he seeding an illigally gan copy then I can see an argument for stolen goods transaction laws)

The leecher are guilty of possession of stolen property.

I stole a ring, but left a replica in its place, then sold it, and he sold it. The second sale of the stolen item is still illegal, and the purchaser of the second sold stolen item is in possession of stolen property.

If I use your car without your permission then bring it back, I still stole your car.

[Aqizzar]

Because it's not taking anything. It is, quite literally, asking someone what the content in question looks like, and reproducing it on your own machine. Trying to label that "theft" would be like trying to label "creating, at your own labor and expense, an exact copy of a given car, by asking someone who owned one what it looked like" as "grand theft auto".

Yes, clicking a download link and building a car are exactly the same thing.

And that would still be illegal, because you're not a licensed manufacturer of the design, and you're not paying the designer any royalties for using their car design.  Really, this argument just keeps coming back to a myopic, egotistical interpretation of a very shallow understanding of the law, where murder and theft are the only crimes, and if you can use good enough wordplay, anything you do is perfectly legal because it doesn't fit an incredibly strict interpretation of that shallow understanding of the law.

[MrWiggles]

People who talk about theft, are actually talking about those two things: acquisition of a good, and deprivation of the good of the original owner.

But piracy doesn't do both of those things. It just involves acquisition, with no deprivation.

Now the original owner has copyright over the thing, so if you copy it without authorization you don't deprive the owner but you do acquire a copy. Piracy is synonymous with copyright violation. Or more accurately, violation of intellectual property.

But the framers of the debate, the ones who can afford commercials on TV and movies and the radio, realize that "violation of intellectual property rights" doesn't have enough punch. They need to use other words to get people riled up. People don't care about copyright or intellectual property, because most of us don't produce things that fall under those. But everyone has property of some kind, and so we all understand theft.

But when the RIAA creates an ad that says piracy is theft, they're telling you piracy does both acquisition and deprivation. But it doesn't; it just does acquisition.

But we don't care about the laws relating to theft. They don't accuse you of murder if you steal a bike. Why would they accuse you of theft if you violated a copyright? They are different crimes.

Now one might argue that the acquisition of goods means a "lost sale" and in that way it's theft. Wrong. Copyright violation already includes that assumption of lost sale.

Copyright violation = piracy.

Theft does not enter the picture. There is no reason to talk about it.

It would depend, on what happen. I dont think copyright volition voids out theft. It depends on actions taken.


Piracy isnt a simple issue, lots of things come into play.

[MrWiggles]

Because it's not taking anything. It is, quite literally, asking someone what the content in question looks like, and reproducing it on your own machine. Trying to label that "theft" would be like trying to label "creating, at your own labor and expense, an exact copy of a given car, by asking someone who owned one what it looked like" as "grand theft auto".

Yes, clicking a download link and building a car are exactly the same thing.

And that would still be illegal, because you're not a licensed manufacturer of the design, and you're not paying the designer any royalties for using their car design.  Really, this argument just keeps coming back to a myopic, egotistical interpretation of a very shallow understanding of the law, where murder and theft are the only crimes, and if you can use good enough wordplay, anything you do is perfectly legal because it doesn't fit an incredibly strict interpretation of that shallow understanding of the law.

In this case, I think it violate the spirit of the law more then it does the letter myself.

[Virex]

Lots of car designs fall under trademark laws or design laws, so you can't just replicate them.

definr.com/take

     7: take something or somebody with oneself somewhere; "Bring me
        the box from the other room";  "Take these letters to the
        boss"; also metaphorical, as in "This brings me to the
        main point" [syn: bring, convey]
     8: take into one's possession; "We are taking an orphan from
        Romania"; "I'll take three salmon steaks" [ant: give]

You aren't "taking" anything. You are making a copy of it.
Also, in the case of torrents/file sharing, you have their consent.

How are you not taking? How can you come into possession without taking? You have the definition right there in the quite. Into one possession.

And yes, the leecher has a passive permission of the seeder. So I suppose I must change my earlier statement;

The seeder is in violation of copyright law (and depending on the amount, it can be gross) [also assuming he is seeding a legally gain copy, if he seeding an illigally gan copy then I can see an argument for stolen goods transaction laws)

The leecher are guilty of possession of stolen property.

I stole a ring, but left a replica in its place, then sold it, and he sold it. The second sale of the stolen item is still illegal, and the purchaser of the second sold stolen item is in possession of stolen property.

If I use your car without your permission then bring it back, I still stole your car.

I don't think you could just lob these cases under theft. It'd be multiple violations of copyright (for creating the copies and for distributing them and also for obtaining an illegal copy), which is the IP-equivalent of respectively, theft, transaction of stolen goods and possession of stolen goods. As said, IP laws are different from theft laws (they can be much broader at times, as with patents, trade secrets and a few others I can't remember) while at other times they can be stricter (database protection is pretty narrow for example).

[MrWiggles]

When ever you're dealing with something intangible such as an IP its a alls copyright, patents ect..., then you have software which can be a counted as physical property and can be counted under theft, but it still intangible in a sense and under IP laws as well. If it was a role playing game, I would chuck out both conflicting systems and make a new universal one. Its like trying to combine oWoD Vampires and Werewolves, sure their in the same universe but their rules dont mesh together.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

Owning information is obsolate, just like owning items will be once we have nanotech, and owning land will be once we have cheap spacetravel.

NSA and other intelligence communities will probably beg to differ with you, and place information at paramount height of importance especialy with those who know it.

That's knowing information, not owning it. And though a case could be made for restricting the proliferation of certain knowledge, that's a different matter entirely from obtaining an unlicensed copy of Avatar or Spore.

ID theft is real and harmful you own your ID.

That's not theft though, unless actual documents/goods were stolen, it's bank/insurance fraud (although gaining fraudulent access to someone's bank account almost certainly leads up to actual theft). The trend of calling it "identity theft" is a propaganda move by the credit industry to pass the blame onto the victims "who weren't guarded enough", rather than rightly taking the blame for their own failure to properly validate identities.

Celebrities sell small variations of their ID for in return of money. Such as liklness.

Which is just egocentric and silly, if sadly true. Although taking or distributing their picture, or using their name (say, in referencing them, or if referring to someone else with the same name), would be "copyright violation" (absurd as any sane mind can see...), it would not be theft either.

How are you not taking? How can you come into possession without taking? You have the definition right there in the quite. Into one possession.

Because you are not acquiring, you're altering the state of your own possession (which you "acquired" at some point, presumably legally, unless you stole the computer/harddrive) to look like something else.

Because it's not taking anything. It is, quite literally, asking someone what the content in question looks like, and reproducing it on your own machine. Trying to label that "theft" would be like trying to label "creating, at your own labor and expense, an exact copy of a given car, by asking someone who owned one what it looked like" as "grand theft auto".

Yes, clicking a download link and building a car are exactly the same thing.

You're right, the processor on your computer is doing many magnitudes more work than the individual building the car.

And that would still be illegal, because you're not a licensed manufacturer of the design, and you're not paying the designer any royalties for using their car design.  Really, this argument just keeps coming back to a myopic, egotistical interpretation of a very shallow understanding of the law, where murder and theft are the only crimes, and if you can use good enough wordplay, anything you do is perfectly legal because it doesn't fit an incredibly strict interpretation of that shallow understanding of the law.

But it would not be grand theft auto, which was the point I was making. It violates patent and trademark law, sure, but it is, in no way, theft of a fucking car.

[Virex]

The whole point would be moot if people would stop seeing IP laws as laws instead of something someone here just pulled out of his ***...

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Mr Wiggles, I do not understand what you are saying.

Do you understand what I am saying?

When you say theft, you say a word with multiple concepts packed into it. Theft is a complex idea, and it has multiple components.

I will put down a couple propositions for you, very clearly:

A: Theft means I gain your thing, and you lose your thing.
B: Copyright Violation means I gain your thing, but you do not lose your thing.

Do you understand these two ideas? Do you understand how they are different from each other?

Assuming you understand that:

C: Piracy means I gain your thing but you do not lose your thing.

This means Piracy is the same thing as Copyright Violation. It means Piracy is not the same thing as Theft.

Let's move on:

D: In Piracy, even though you keep your thing, I gained it from you for free. I might have bought yout thing instead. So by doing the Piracy and getting your thing for free, you "Lose A Sale".

This is a little more complicated, but I needed to say it. Part D is where a lot of people think the Piracy becomes Theft. But Copyright Violation already has the idea of a Lost Sale in it. If you do Copyright Violation, it is a crime, but it is not Theft.

Conclusion: Theft is a thing. Copyright Violation is a thing. Piracy is Copyright Violation. Piracy is not Theft.

I cannot make this any clearer for you.

[Neruz]

I am quite sure that last night we finished the discussion about "Piracy is lost sales!". Why has it cropped up again?

[Bauglir]

-snip-

[Neruz]

It is legal to download a copy of the game if you own a valid key; when you buy a game you're not buying that specific copy of the game, but rather you are buying the right to play the game.