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[inteuniso]

but corporations are people too D:

Anyways, you all have a point about how the current government works, but here's a problem: humans naturally like to select a leader. It's easy to demonstrate too: in your group of friends, do you have someone who generally makes decisions, tells others what to do? You don't have a problem with it, because you accept him as a follower.

No, the real problem, is that we have too few leaders for the amount of people. with the advent of nigh-instant communication, it would be even easier to make a decentralized government. Instead of a representative or parliamentary democracy, let us have federations, where states or provinces are self-governing entities, with towns and counties governing themselves. By decentralizing, people will have less of a problem, not because they're being ruled by someone else, but because they're familiar with their leader.

The federal government can assign taxes to the states, and the states, in turn, will have to assign taxes to the counties, and the counties will assign taxes to the towns, and the towns will tax the people. By decentralizing, taxes can be placed on a community basis, and they won't be based on brackets or other qualifications.

... and I just realized this has nothing to do with the topic.

Piracy is stealing, as you can't copy down a book, then give it to other people for free. The crux of this is understanding the video game purchase: You are not purchasing the code itself, but a license to use the code. If you used a yogurt culture to make more yogurt and give it to people, the manufacturers won't get angry. But if you got a recipe for the yogurt, and you started making copies of it and handing it out, and THOSE people made copies and handed it out, suddenly the manufacturers are really pissed. It is hard to make analogies, as video games are unique. Pirating songs is not the same thing as pirating video games; if you pirate a video game, there is a whole lot more you can do with that pirated video game than you can do with a pirated song.

[Frumple]

Piracy is stealing, as you can't copy down a book, then give it to other people for free.

That is, actually, exactly how a lot of pirated books are distributed. Turning them into ebooks saves a lot of effort from printing out the copies, but yes, people have actually transcribed books and given them out for free. It is a thing that happens.

[GlyphGryph]

inteuniso, like many others, you've made an argument for why copyright infringement is wrong and, somehow, used that to draw the conclusion that copyright infringement is stealing.

Especially when your argument about it being wrong is based solely and completely on whether or not people get upset that you are doing it.

[SalmonGod]

I am not against privacy.  It's true even in this case that knowledge is knowledge.  Everyone benefits, except the person whose privacy is being violated.  However, if we abandon respect for privacy entirely, then everyone's privacy gets violated and no one is happy.

The same principle applies to IP law our current situation.  Everyone benefits from free access to information, except the source of that information who cannot use it to support themselves.  So I should clarify that within our current capitalist system, I actually support intellectual property laws.  However, I think our current situation is ridiculous.  Intellectual property should not be necessary and the situation needs to be changed.  Plus, current IP law is corrupt to the point that its effect is the opposite of its intended purpose in most cases, so I feel very little moral responsibility to respect it.

As for all the comments on anarchy, I'm sitting on my hands (forum equivalent of biting my tongue) to avoid too much of a derail.  I'm more than willing to respond to this stuff in another thread or PM.

[inteuniso]

Glyphgryph, I will give you one simple reason: you break the contract you agree to when you install the game. This does, however, lead to a loophole, and an interesting legal argument: do you agree to the End User License Agreement when you purchase the game, or when you check the box? If you don't agree to it by simply purchasing the game, it may be ethically wrong, but they have no legal recourse against you.

[Nadaka]

Glyphgryph, I will give you one simple reason: you break the contract you agree to when you install the game. This does, however, lead to a loophole, and an interesting legal argument: do you agree to the End User License Agreement when you purchase the game, or when you check the box? If you don't agree to it by simply purchasing the game, it may be ethically wrong, but they have no legal recourse against you.

You can not agree to a license before you have read it, you can not agree to a license by purchasing a game.

[GlyphGryph]

inteuniso, again, I will give you one simple counter.

That explains why it might be illegal, wrong, and breach of contract.

At no point does it explain why it should be considered stealing.

And copyright has nothing to do with EULAs and shit anyways - no matter how you come into possession of a copyright covered object, you are not allowed to reproduce it.

Seriously, that example is like... twice as irrelevant as your previous attempt.

[FuzzyZergling]

In my opinion, piracy is theft.
No, I'm not going to explain why I think that or try to convince anyone who disagrees with me that they're wrong.

[G-Flex]

I honestly have no idea why this was an argument in the first place, much less why it's still going on. Theft is defined as the direct and non-consensual deprivation of someone else's property, whereas copyright infringement is the non-consensual copying/distribution of protected information. These things do not necessarily overlap and are defined completely differently both in the dictionary and in pretty much all legislation. There is no argument to be had here. An extremely circuitous argument about copyright infringement possibly depriving someone of potential profit, in some indirect causal sense, does not make it theft any more than assault being "theft" just because the person loses money due to medical bills. I hate to say it, but the very existence of this thread is completely ridiculous.

In my opinion, piracy is theft.
No, I'm not going to explain why I think that or try to convince anyone who disagrees with me that they're wrong.

Thank you for your insightfully counterfactual contribution to this thread.

[Nadaka]

G-Flex: I agree 100%. There is no interpretation of copyright that can possibly make it theft. The only reason people might think it is theft is that the media organizations have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on propaganda to make people think it is theft.

[SalmonGod]

Two things.

One:

Professional>Non Professional

Of course that is not true in all cases, but overall it pretty clearly is. The increase in Indie stuff is not from a failing of professional workers, but rather from the increase in distribution methods that allow indies to act like professionals. You hint at a system where there is no professional. Or at least vastly less. That will be a drop in quality.

I hint at a system where people can be professionals without needing to enforce restrictions on access to their work, because a person's value is not measured by the scarcity of the product that they offer to society.

I also disagree that professional > non-professional.  There has been an increase in indie stuff, and you're right that it is mainly due to the accessibility of distribution channels, not a failing by professional workers.  However, my personal experience in the arts over the past decade has been a drastic increase in quality as a result, not a decrease.  A good chunk of the music I listen to, and consider to be of a quality on par to "professional" work pre-file sharing era, would have never made it past their local scene were this conversation taking place 15 years ago.  I guess you could also phrase this as piracy has allowed an increase in the number of people who deserve to be professionals actually becoming professionals.

[GlyphGryph]

G-Flex, I honestly don't understand it at all. And FuzzyZerglings response has finally convinced me of why.

It's religious.

It is, very simply, a matter of faith. It is both a stunning tribute to the entertainment industries amazing campaign of propaganda, and an astonishing ability on the part of its victims to internalize it.

Look at how they assume the worst of me - That I'm a pirate, that I'm opposed to copyright in all forms, that I think copyright infringement is perfectly acceptable, simply because I disagree with them and can actually provide evidence to the contrary.

It is the fervor of the religious - that this it is theft is not an object of discourse, it is a matter of faith, and anyone who denies it is clearly lacking in morals.

And there's not really any arguing with that, I suppose, just this endless back and forth. :/

[SalmonGod]

and anyone who denies it is clearly lacking in morals.

I don't think anyone here is saying that as much as you think.

[G-Flex]

G-Flex: I agree 100%. There is no interpretation of copyright that can possibly make it theft. The only reason people might think it is theft is that the media organizations have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on propaganda to make people think it is theft.

Would you download a car? Hell yes I wish I could download a car!

Also, remember not to copy that floppy.

[Nadaka]

That GlyphGryph is what I refer to as the war on language.

By corrupting the nature of language using propaganda, people are no longer capable of actually grasping the nature of certain topics.

It isn't just copyright infringement/piracy/theft it extends to many fields. When was the last time you heard someone use the word "liberal" and it meant someone willing to entertain and rationally evaluate alternative points of view?