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[Neonivek]

Well the difference with Piracy and theft is that Piracy does not deny the holder of their product and it doesn't nessisarily deny them of the money.

While Theft denies them of the product and denies them of the potential to make a sale off that very object.

It isn't the same but it shouldn't be treated nonchalantly.

[G-Flex]

Theft is taking something from someone. Piracy doesn't do that.
Copyright infringement is distributing (or, in this case, accessing) information you did not have the rights to distribute/access.

These are entirely different things, even if the latter case can cause some level of financial harm.

[Criptfeind]

How is the end result the same, exactly? Please inform me of that. If the end result is "they might hypothetically lose money" then you might as well say that any crime possibly linked to depriving someone of money is "the same".

I honestly don't know how you can conflate "this person deprived me of real, actual property, which I no longer have, because he took it" and "this person deprived me of absolutely nothing except the extremely hypothetical money he would have otherwise given me for the information he accessed illicitly". They are not the same thing.

Okay. For the purposes of this exercise we will be setting aside the fact that some pirating is good and some is null. This has to do with solely with pirating that takes away money.

Okay.

A: You steal goods that production costs and selling price added up to $50. The person who made it and who was going to sell it now has $50 less then he would if you had not stolen it.

B: You steal a game that you would have purchased for $50 if you could not steal it. The person who made it and who was going to sell it now has $50 less then he would if you had not stolen it.

[Neonivek]

Here is the difference Criptfeind

A occurs within the act itself and is the intrinsic result.
B requires the potentiality to be resolved. In otherwords the loss is seperate from the act at least as far as not being the intrinsic result. PLUS your forgetting that they technically can STILL sell the product... just not to that same person.

[Phmcw]

No, there is no such thing as a good in the second case. So nothing to steal.
You couldn't copy your sister's car, no matter how much you wanted it. But you can clone her cd.

Another one, try to give bread and hope than somehow you'll get more and of better quality. Stupid idea, he?
Now free (as in free and open source this time) software work this way and is pretty successful. Absolute proof that  intellectual "things" and material goods are different.

[Blargityblarg]

Yes, and in that specific case the effects are identical. In that specific case.

Discarding every other set of circumstances can lead to such justifications as 'I shot at him because the bullet would provide a momentary patch of shade to protect him from harmful UV radiation.' It's just not a thing to do if you want to keep your argument reasonable.

[G-Flex]

Okay. For the purposes of this exercise we will be setting aside the fact that some pirating is good and some is null. This has to do with solely with pirating that takes away money.

It's a shame you can't actually make that distinction in real life. You're talking about some bizarre imaginary scenario where you actually know how much money the company is losing. This is never true in the real world unless the other person directly admits to it and would follow through, and even can tell you how much he would pay. But okay, fine, let's assume this.

Okay.

A: You steal goods that production costs and selling price added up to $50. The person who made it and who was going to sell it now has $50 less then he would if you had not stolen it.

B: You steal a game that you would have purchased for $50 if you could not steal it. The person who made it and who was going to sell it now has $50 less then he would if you had not stolen it.

This does not mean that you committed the same crime. If I rob your house of twenty bucks, you have twenty fewer bucks. If I find a $20 bill you drop out of your wallet and keep it instead of telling you, you're short the same amount. That does not mean that I have, in the eyes of the law, committed the same offense.


Seriously though, you cannot say that two crimes are equivalent just because they have the same end results in some cases. By that logic, I could focus on all the cases of surgery that end in death, discard all other surgeries, and say "surgery has the same end results as murder, and is therefore equivalent".

The fact of the matter is that this whole time, you've been equating piracy with theft, when in reality, you're not talking about piracy at all; you're talking about the subset of piracy where the perpetrators would have bought the product at some specified price, which is extremely far from making up all cases of piracy, is never necessarily the case, and is generally impossible to discern anyway.

[Phmcw]

Wait, so your argument is that :it's wrong because you deprive the company from a profit? But there is nothing wrong with that!
If you don't buy a cd, you deprive the company from the profit it would have realized by selling it to you.
And your printed book, how do you dare? DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH MONEY YOU STOLE FROM A COPYIST MONK?
Actually by not paying me you're depriving me from the profit I'd make if you'd pay me, THIEF.

[Criptfeind]

B requires the potentiality to be resolved. In otherwords the loss is seperate from the act at least as far as not being the intrinsic result.

You seem to be using words wrong. You are saying that the loss is not the natural result of the action? Because, so long as cause still follows effect it will be.

PLUS your forgetting that they technically can STILL sell the product... just not to that same person.

No. I am not. That does not make a bit of deference at all.

I am going to stop responding to your posts unless you talk to me in the third person. Any by that I wish for you to say Cript or Criptfeind instead of you.

Yes, and in that specific case the effects are identical. In that specific case.

Discarding every other set of circumstances can lead to such justifications as 'I shot at him because the bullet would provide a momentary patch of shade to protect him from harmful UV radiation.' It's just not a thing to do if you want to keep your argument reasonable.

To far. You stretch it too far.

My case is something that happens.

It's a shame you can't actually make that distinction in real life. You're talking about some bizarre imaginary scenario where you actually know how much money the company is losing. This is never true in the real world unless the other person directly admits to it and would follow through, and even can tell you how much he would pay. But okay, fine, let's assume this.

Yes. The point is to get past the part where you ignore the rest via saying ‘but you don’t know man’

This does not mean that you committed the same crime. If I rob your house of twenty bucks, you have twenty fewer bucks. If I find a $20 bill you drop out of your wallet and keep it instead of telling you, you're short the same amount. That does not mean that I have, in the eyes of the law, committed the same offense.

Okay. Not the same crime. Equivalent crime then. I don’t care and the point of this is to talk about if it actually hurts some one anyway. So I don’t care.

Seriously though, you cannot say that two crimes are equivalent just because they have the same end results in some cases. By that logic, I could focus on all the cases of surgery that end in death, discard all other surgeries, and say "surgery has the same end results as murder, and is therefore equivalent".

If you have a large amount of surgeons going around killing people in surgery, so many that more people are killed via surgery then would live without surgery. Then yes. You do in fact have a issue.
Now, I know the next thing is going to be you whining about me changing what you said. But you have to understand you took my point out to a illogical limit to invalidate it. So I am only taking it back to a logical point and giving it structure. So shut up.

The fact of the matter is that this whole time, you've been equating piracy with theft, when in reality, you're not talking about piracy at all; you're talking about the subset of piracy where the perpetrators would have bought the product at some specified price, which is extremely far from making up all cases of piracy, is never necessarily the case, and is generally impossible to discern anyway.

Yes. Good you finally get me. Why did it take so long.

[Phmcw]

I am going to stop responding to your posts unless you talk to me in the third person. Any by that I wish for you to say Cript or Criptfeind instead of you.

Sorry I can't because I require you to write in pink while singing your national anthem in order to respond to you.

[ChairmanPoo]

Like this?

[Derekristow]

Seriously though, you cannot say that two crimes are equivalent just because they have the same end results in some cases. By that logic, I could focus on all the cases of surgery that end in death, discard all other surgeries, and say "surgery has the same end results as murder, and is therefore equivalent".

If you have a large amount of surgeons going around killing people in surgery, so many that more people are killed via surgery then would live without surgery. Then yes. You do in fact have a issue.
Now, I know the next thing is going to be you whining about me changing what you said. But you have to understand you took my point out to a illogical limit to invalidate it. So I am only taking it back to a logical point and giving it structure. So shut up.

The point they were all making is that you DON'T know how many "people are dieing in surgery."  If everyone did, then you would indeed have a problem, but the simple fact of the matter is that you can't be sure.  They were all making unreasonable comparisons in order to point out that your case wasn't an accurate reflection of the real world either.

Let's break out the graph again, in a more robust form:

Sale of Object:
('_')o    $ ('_')
('_')$     o('_')

Sale of Data:
('_')o     $('_')
$('_')o     o('_')

Theft:
('_')o     ('_')$
('_')     o('_')$

Piracy:
('_')o     ('_')$
--------------
('_')o    o('_')$ OR                                    Probability:  ?%
$('_')o    o('_') OR (albeit rarely)                 Probability:  ?%
$$('_')o    o('_')                                       Probability:  ?%

If we reduce it to the first case like you did, it does share extreme similarity with the case you put forth (with the important exception that the seller retains their copy, which they can sell again).  However, in the real world ANY of these cases can happen, at unknown probability to boot!  While loss of potential profit is certainly probable, you can't say for sure.  This doesn't make it ok, it just means that people shouldn't treat every copy pirated as a theft, or even as a total loss.

[Phmcw]

Not to mention that you still have to explain why we should pay them for each copy. Why we should pay for each car is obvious : cost of fabrication cost of investment + benefits. But why should you take a benefits on a product whose cost of fabrication are near zero, even though the cost of investment is non null. Worse, anyone can make it. The product is still wanted, so it still worth something, but it's value is not in it's distribution.

Of course this discussion is useless since you can't control piracy anyway, and that any attempt are freedom threatening.

[Derekristow]

In my mind, the reason you should pay for a product is so that it will continue being developed and made.  Not just for digital products, but physical ones as well.  I could have pirated all of Valve's games if I wanted to, but then they would have gotten the money that allows them to do their jobs, and tells them which products I would like to see more of.  At the end of the day, you are voting with your wallet.  This is why I agree with Neonivek above, when he says people should do what they can to avoid crappy games they would hate.  Piracy isn't necessarily the solution to the problem, but there isn't any better way to get an opinion of a product than using it. 

Incidentally, I highly support game demos that don't actually cut out game features, just content.

[Phmcw]

In my mind, the reason you should pay for a product is so that it will continue being developed and made.  Not just for digital products, but physical ones as well.  I could have pirated all of Valve's games if I wanted to, but then they would have gotten the money that allows them to do their jobs, and tells them which products I would like to see more of.  At the end of the day, you are voting with your wallet.  This is why I agree with Neonivek above, when he says people should do what they can to avoid crappy games they would hate.  Piracy isn't necessarily the solution to the problem, but there isn't any better way to get an opinion of a product than using it. 

Incidentally, I highly support game demos that don't actually cut out game features, just content.

Paying for a game in an environment that doesn't force you to do so is highly commendable (such as making a donation to toady, or buying a copy of mine-craft). And indeed, people won't work for free, so you'll have to pay them in order to have game. I'd have no problem paying the price of any  of the "total war"game (if they worked on Linux, of course) if I didn't boycott the entertainment company because of their support of privacy killing laws.

Checking on everyone in order to make copy a crime is not acceptable, however.

Anyway there is several ways to make money on games, and lots of these doesn't involve resticting copy right. (Paying for access to the server, getting the upgrades...). I'd love if free and open source software was a viable platform for games, but it doesn't seems to be the cases