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[Truean]

Wait, wait a minute - is the contract for the car violation really considered theft?

I mean, I knew about it, but I thought that was just "damages due to contract violation". I didn't think it was legally theft.

o_o

Well, consider my approach muddied. I wouldn't consider that theft, myself (wrong, yes, potentially responsible for the lost profits, perhaps, but theft, no), but if it's actually in the lawbook as theft that makes it significantly harder to disagree with.

It is not technically a violation of the criminal code no. However, one can see the comparison. Would you honestly be happier if I said they should be sued for the value of the song just as one can be sued for the value of the car's profits?

That's my main point about piracy: The only way to stop it is to provide a better service than the pirates.

And what's to stop them from taking that better service/product and pirating that too?

You are stealing the money the company would've made had you not pirated the game.

That's the gist of that side of the argument, yes.

[Darvi]

Well you can't really pirate a service.

Or can you?

[GlyphGryph]

Would you honestly be happier if I said they should be sued for the value of the song just as one can be sued for the value of the car's profits?

Yes. Yes I would. Because that is actually a true thing, while calling it theft (a word with a clear legal and social meaning) is not accurate, while that statement is.

[Solifuge]

Electronic media which can be duplicated infinitely is a relatively new thing, culturally speaking. This is a new concept, and as such, we need to take a moment to consider this outside traditional legal concepts, and give some thought to the social and economic implications of piracy, and the spirit of theft itself.

Suppose two people go to the supermarket. One purchases a very expensive bottle of champagne from their personal savings for a special event. The other manages to slip a bottle of the same champagne into their coat, and walk out of the store with it. The person paying still can enjoy the product they have, so nothing is denied them. Meanwhile, the thief enjoys both the product and their saved money, and the vinter of the Champagne has only received half of the money owed them for creating the product. The store, the vinter who made the product, and the individual who buys the product all come out behind, while the thief comes out ahead.

Say someone purchases an expensive, new copy of "Call of Duty 12: The Gunnening", while someone else pirates a copy of the same game which was leaked to a filesharing service. Both are allowed to enjoy the product and receive its benefits, but once again the pirate can do so without having given anything to the developer. The pirate once again comes out on top, because they can enjoy both the product in question and their unspent money, while both the developer and those who purchased it legally come up behind.

Software piracy is a new crime... never before have we been able to produce an exact copy of an existing product at no material cost. As such, it gives us cause to revise our idea of what "theft" actually is. I would say that, since both pirates and thieves are denying the creator compensation for their product, and leaving those who purchase products legally in a worse position than they (however minor), after stealing the product, I would say they are one and the same thing.

[Truean]

Would you honestly be happier if I said they should be sued for the value of the song just as one can be sued for the value of the car's profits?

Yes. Yes I would. Because that is actually a true thing, while calling it theft (a word with a clear legal and social meaning) is not accurate, while that statement is.

Of course you realize, theft is what a statute as a law by the legislature says it is.... So if the legislature were to say it is.... Given the new freedoms granted to bribery lobbying groups.... The legislature may well say that it is someday. Perhaps soon. Who knows....

Well you can't really pirate a service.

Or can you?

That is the question....

I don't know about the technical use of the word "pirate" or whatever, but I have too many people trying not to pay me for my services. I notice quite the drop in my bank account compared to the amounts I'm owed and the rent cometh due....

We're becoming a service based economy in a country where no one wants to pay for services....
How's that gonna work out...?

[MorleyDev]

That's my main point about piracy: The only way to stop it is to provide a better service than the pirates.

And what's to stop them from taking that better service/product and pirating that too?

You misunderstand me completely. I don't mean make a better product, I mean make the service they use to obtain that product better than the one pirates can offer. For example make it more convenient to buy a game than to find a working torrent for it, read all the comments for the torrent so nobodies found a trojan horse or virus in it, download the torrent, virus scan the torrent, find a working crack, virus scan the crack, hope you haven't somehow missed anything and that your computer won't explode when you try and run the game...

And the latter is still more convenient than having to go to the shop and actually buy a hard copy of the game.

[GlyphGryph]

Software piracy is a new crime... never before have we been able to produce an exact copy of an existing product at no material cost. As such, it gives us cause to revise our idea of what "theft" actually is. I would say that, since both pirates and thieves are denying the creator compensation for their product, and leaving those who purchase products legally in a worse position than they (however minor), after stealing the product, I would say they are one and the same thing.

Except there's nothing inherent in piracy that leaves the store/owner of the product any worse off, while in your initial example they were at least out the bottle of wine.

I think it's more akin to buying a yogurt cup from the store, taking it home, using it as a base to grow my own yogurt from, and sharing it with friends. My friends win, they don't purchase from the store, is that theft?

Maybe you want to live in a world where something like that is wrong. Maybe. But I don't think we can reasonable consider that theft, and I'm honestly not sure I want to live in that world.

[freeformschooler]

I don't know about the technical use of the word "pirate" or whatever, but I have too many people trying not to pay me for my services. I notice quite the drop in my bank account compared to the amounts I'm owed and the rent cometh due....

We're becoming a service based economy in a country where no one wants to pay for services....
How's that gonna work out...?

Pretty well, actually, if you look at a service like Steam. It is entirely possible to pirate and play any of those games with a few clicks of the mouse. But part of the reason Steam is so successful is it actually provides a service that people would rather use than pirate, if they have the dough. Free content updates and bugfixes. Buy once, download forever. Ease of use. And so on.

That's not going to stop pirates, per se. Nothing can stop piracy. But you can certainly trim it down by providing a service better and easier than pirating a product.

That's my main point about piracy: The only way to stop it is to provide a better service than the pirates.

And what's to stop them from taking that better service/product and pirating that too?

You misunderstand me completely. I don't mean make a better product, I mean make the service they use to obtain that product better than the one pirates can offer. For example make it more convenient to buy a game than to find a working torrent for it, download the torrent, read all the comments for the torrent so nobodies found a trojan horse or virus in it, find a working crack, virus scan the crack....

Basically, what Morley's saying.

[Darvi]

We're becoming a service based economy in a country where no one wants to pay for services....
How's that gonna work out...?

Everybody should deny their services and watch as either people will want to shove their money down your throat or how civilization as we know it crumbles.

[Luke_Prowler]

Well you can't really pirate a service.

Or can you?

Depends on what the service is. If it's something like, say, a DLC pack when you buy a game from a store (like a character or weapon skin) then yes. I actually remember a conversation on a 40K forum that was talking about how someone could use a 3D printer to make copies of Game Workshop models. When "providing a better service" was mentioned as a solutions against that, it was pointed out that even if the models were of better quality then someone could still print them. They'd might only need a better 3D printer.

[Darvi]

A DLC isn't so much a service as it is another product.

[Max White]

No, copyright infringement is not theft.
It is it's own crime that needs to be judged on it's own merit. It is sometimes a lot more harmful than theft, sometimes a lot less. It shouldn't be bundled with anything crime just to try and express a point.

[Pnx]

This makes good reading:
http://www.positech.co.uk/talkingtopirates.html

According to the questionnaire he ran only about 5% of pirates actually do it, just for the free stuff. To summarise:

The vast majority of pirates say they wouldn't pay for the game anyway. There are a lot of other reasons people pirate, like as a form of demo so they can "try before you buy", which is increasingly the case since a lot of game companies don't do game demos anymore. Besides, a lot of games quite frankly suck, and it's commonplace to find people regretting the fact that they bought a game after they bought it.

Most pirates are actually people who don't have disposable income to spend on games, or at least not for the price that they're at. A lot of them are kids who don't earn their own income, a lot of the rest are from countries with inflated currencies, or are simply at the bottom of the barrel.

[Vector]

You are stealing the money the company would've made had you not pirated the game.
/thread

And if I wouldn't have given them any money, no matter what?

/your argument


Seriously, dudes, we've got libraries, but people still buy copies of books and games and movies and whatever other stuff they could borrow for free-to-them.  Why?

[GlyphGryph]

Luke, you seem to be confusing better service and better product. Providing a better service, in that case, might mean "delivering the item to your house faster than the device can print it, and for cheaper than the cost of printing it".

Not making a higher quality model.