Piracy explicitly is not stealing. Theft requires denying the owner of the ability to use the thing that is stolen. Copyright infringement does not meet this bar, and is not a crime in the vast majority of cases. Commercial copyright infringement is the only offense classed as a crime, which in a nutshell is piracy for profit ie selling pirated material.
Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
⚓ Dedicated to the discussion of digital piracy, including ethical problems and legal advancements.
Rules • Full Version
1. Posts must be related to the discussion of digital piracy
2. Don't request invites, trade, sell, or self-promote
3. Don't request or link to specific pirated titles, including DMs
4. Don't submit low-quality posts, be entitled, or harass others
Loot, Pillage, & Plunder
💰 Please help cover server costs.
Piracy explicitly is not stealing.
Piracy is attacking ships at sea and is usually done in order to rob them.
Piracy is midnight oyster and clam harvesting without a license to break the oyster cartel, making restaurant oysters and clams more available and cheaper to customers.
It is from this grand tradition along the US West Coast that the notion of media piracy rose, and much like the Golden Age of Piracy robbing the Spanish Silver Train, piracy is associated with snatching ill-gotten gains from those who don't deserve it, sometimes benefiting communities that do. (YMMV).
This is why you get a letter of marque to give you legitimacy. I've been letioning my government for one endlessly so I can attack Russian shipping in the balkans.
And privateering is piracy when you have the consent of a government to attack ships belonging to another government
Regardless of the semantics of what we call theft, or whether theft requires denying somebody access to some good, there's an ethical issue with copying other people's stuff without permission. If a person breaks into another persons home and makes copies of all of the documents in their home private or otherwise, they've at least committed a crime in the form of breaking and entering. But if a person is invited into another persons home, and then without pemission copies all of the documents in the house, that still feels like a wrong act? Like, if you invite me into your house and I start copying down your personal journal, your family photos and other stuff you have lying around, to me that sounds like I'd be doing something wrong by you?
Edit: I do want to point out here that I'm not saying piracy is inherently wrong/bad or never justified.
Sure, but breaking and entering is a crime - just like theft. Copying someone's documents is wrong, but it's not a crime (not unless you commit a crime with those documents, eg fraudulently take out credit). In that case, it's a civil offense against the victim - just like copyright infringement.
Crimes are prosecuted by the government. To be convicted of a crime you have to be proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt - in other words, it's more than 99% likely you did it.
Civil offenses are prosecuted by the victim. The burden of proof is "the balance of probabilities", ie it's more than 50% likely you did it. The victim must also show actual damages.
In the US, media companies have perverted the law around copyright infringement, and they manage to get awarded statutory damages well in excess of any actual damages they incur. This is why we had all those ridiculous Napster lawsuits where people were fined hundreds of thousands for downloading a handful of songs. In the rest of the world, they could only be awarded actual damages, and the lawsuits weren't really worth anything.
Media companies would really like copyright infringement to be theft, and they've lobbied hard for that. However they haven't managed it, not yet anyway. They did manage to establish a crime of commercial copyright infringement, though, where if you pirate a significant amount of material or do it for profit you could be criminally charged.
Piracy is stealing- but so is capitalism so it’s fine.
It may sound the same but making a copy of something is absolutely not the same as taking something. It’s an important distinction.
No, it very much isn't. Don't buy into the media companies trying to rewrite the law in their favour. Copyright infringement is not theft.
that's an interesting definition, and one that appeals to me especially as a fan of "harmless" theft (taking something that the owner will never notice is gone, nor be inconvenienced by the lack of)
It's literally the legal definition. Copyright infringement has never been theft. Media companies have been trying to change the definition of theft, though.
It used to never be a crime, only a civil offense. This means the rightsholder has to sue you, rather than the state prosecute you, but also that the burden of proof is "the balance of probabilities", ie whichever side tips the scale past 50/50 with their argument, rather than "beyond reasonable doubt" which is more like >99%. However in the last decade many countries have introduced "commercial copyright infringement" as a criminal offense. Off the top of my head, in the US I think the threshold for that is like $1,000 or something.
It's not about it being "harmless" but the fact that you're not taking something away from someone. If I steal your laptop and sell it, you no longer have a laptop. If I copy data, you still have your original copy.
This is also why there's a different crime for "joyriding" instead of just stealing a car. If you steal a car, you might argue that you were just taking it for a drive, and never intended to permanently deprive the owner. In that case it's easier to convict you for joyriding instead of theft.
Someone: Photographs pages of a book in a book store
OP: "Hello Police? Someone is stealing a book!"
aside: why can't lemmy just let me expand the thumbnail without directing me to an external site
To add onto that, on the Jerboa app (not sure about other apps), if I try to click on an image in a comment, it just minimizes the comment. I'd love to be able to click on pictures in comments, as well, and have the thumbnail expand.
Don't make me tap the sidebar again...
You can steal digital goods, but to do so you have to copy it and erase the original. Otherwise its just copying.
That's dumb. If you are supposed to pay for something and you just take it instead, you stole it. You can argue word meanings and technicallies all day, but it's a lot easier to just be real about what we are doing here.
It is copyright violation, not stealing. Yes, it is damaging to the content creator, under current economic and law structure, but it is not stealing. If you burn a house belonging to the content creator, you do not call it stealing, just because it is damaging to them. So, why do you insist on calling it stealing here?
On a side note, one can incision a society where there is no copyright. In that society it would be completely lawful and “non-damaging” to copy things. Copyright is an artificial construct that we choose to have, but it does not mean that we can not rejected (we, as in the whole society, not individual)
If you stole a car, you physically took something away from somebody. If you download a car, the original is still there - you’re just making an exact copy for yourself for free. Same if you swiped a candy bar at a gas station - you’re depriving that gas station the use of their property, which is to sell and make money. If you download a candy bar, nothing is taken and the gas station can still sell the original.
So let’s be crystal clear here: what’s happening is not theft, because nothing was taken and the owner is not deprived of the use of their property. Can you argue that you’re getting something for free when you shouldn’t? Yes, and that’s more in line of denying profits rather than actual theft.
We're talking about the crime of theft and the civil offense of copyright infringement. There is no argument about word meanings or technicalities, just what the law actually says.
Media companies want copyright infringement to be considered theft, and they've lobbied the government to try and change the definition in their favour, but the fact is the law distinguishes between them. Copyright infringement is wrong, but it is not a crime and nor is it theft.
If you're selling apples, and I steal and eat an apple, that's theft. You no longer have an apple, you had a cost price for that apple and you can't sell it anymore to make the profit you would have made. Meanwhile, if you sell a game and I copy that game, you still have your original copies. Yes, you haven't had the money I might have paid for a copy, but it hasn't cost you anything and you still have an infinite number of copies to sell. If I was never going to buy the game from you anyway, then you wouldn't have even got that either way.
The US is weird though, in that the courts award statutory damages for copyright infringement. If you fileshare a few songs to a pool of users they might stack up the fines for each user you shared to up to hundreds of thousands of dollars - nevermind that they never would have made that money from selling to all of those people you shared it with. In the rest of the world, they deal with actual damages, and claims for copyright infringement were rarely if ever very large.
Media Piracy is copyright infringement, which is totally not stealing.
The US Supreme Court taking content out of the public domain so that it can be reserved for private use isn't stealing either, but it causes more harm than piracy.
Talk about blowing smoke up your own ass.
I don't know man. Where I live the law says it's not stealing. It says: legal to share, illegal to share for profit. On other words: legal to share, illegal to sell.
I honestly don't care about the legality. Plus I come from a country where we have way bigger issues to deal with than piracy.
All I care about is coming up with ways to make sure my friends watch some of the stuff I recommend to them. Best way is still going "hey, check out this cool new show. Yes it's on saltyflix"
that is exactly where i am at as well, battling with absurdly high inflation is already hard enough i can't pay for bajillion different streaming services or non indie games
I’m living in one of those countries. I still use a vpn, but I don’t anyone here does besides me.
But the way I look at it is, the people so make these things are also so rich out at least have higher incomes than I do by a significant amount.
Why are you asking me for money? Don’t you have enough?
It's a lot earlier when you realize that everyone else is going to treat this world like a smash and grab regardless of what you do. These companies ~~included~~ especially.
Or you could just not give a flying fuck about the moral and ethical aspects and go on with your life.
Live the unexamined life? But then who will pay attention to me?
I live on a small island and the closest cinema or shop where I could buy anything is 3 hours away.
Piracy is more comfortable for me.
then why don't you subscribe to streaming services?
Well, my friend: I don't like to be locked out of other regions.
If no one loses anything they never had in the first place it is not stealing
This meme is stealing.
You wouldn't download a meme.
You wouldn't shitpost in the policeman's helmet
"But I want to support those little poor billionares, who's going to look after their livehood and ethical buisness?"
The more you pay for big brands, whatever product you buy, be it clothes, food, or any form of knowledge, the more you drive up the sales, the more you reinforce the idea that money is a tool only a few chosen are rightful of having, just like the riches and the labour of the many. (Buy from local producers as much as you can)
Ironically enough, pirating makes people more aware of what it consumes, what labor is and mostly to get to support creators directly for what they put out. You can't steal from corporations, you only get back the unpaid /underpaid labour of many. Quality content and effort should be rewarded, so please support/help your creators in any way you can.
I am proud of pirating and I don't get why people who also pirate would have a problem with that. Like you think it's wrong and do it anyway, but think people who don't think it's wrong are cringe somehow? What's wrong with standing up for what you believe in?
More pirates vs pirates memes when it should be pirates vs executives
Yep, I pirate for the same reason my dog licks his balls.. because we can
i disagree. not that i would care anyway