YOU WOULDN’T STEAL A PURSE
Comment on Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing"
Rough_N_Ready@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Piracy was never stealing. It’s copyright infringement, but that’s not the same as stealing at all. People saying it’s stealing have always been wrong.
NateNate60@lemmy.world 6 months ago
balancedchaos@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
-Character from some movie I pirated
Lemminary@lemmy.world 6 months ago
In this economy with this level of corporate greed, I will download all the purses
Linkerbaan@lemmy.world 6 months ago
You wouldn’t download a trillion dollalrs
Klear@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
I would infringe all over its copyright tho
konalt@lemmy.world 6 months ago
You wouldn’t steal a baby!
AtariDump@lemmy.world 6 months ago
You wouldn’t shoot a policeman and then steal his helmet.
Coasting0942@reddthat.com 6 months ago
You wouldn’t download fish and bread!
Jesus: hold my wine……
ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 6 months ago
I bet you aren’t a software developer.
grue@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I’m a software developer, and I endorse the grandparent comment.
ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 6 months ago
And you all just were happy and bro fisted people who ignored the licensing terms?
grue@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Yes.
Well, not literally, both because I’m more inclined to “high five” and you can’t do either gesture over the Internet. But figuratively, yes.
puttybrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
If I made software that people cared enough about to crack and pirate, I’d be happy that it’s popular enough for that to happen.
I am a software developer but I’ve only worked on SaAS and open source projects.
zerofk@lemm.ee 6 months ago
I work on software which is pirated. It is even sold by crackers, who make money off my work. This does not make me proud.
What does make me proud is when a paying customer says they love a specific feature, or that our software saves them a lot of manual work.
satan@r.nf 6 months ago
I’d be happy that it’s popular enough for that to happen.
of course you would. you would actually give them your house and wife, because you’re so proud now. right?
TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Ah yes, because downloading Shark_Tale.mp4 is exactly the same as someone taking your house away from you and obtaining your wife and having them as personal property.
Get some fucking perspective. I usually try to be polite online but this is just straight up moronic and you need to be told so bluntly.
irmoz@reddthat.com 6 months ago
Lmao
poopkins@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Pride unfortunately doesn’t pay the bills. It’s terrific that you contribute to open source, but not all commercial software can be open sourced.
psud@aussie.zone 6 months ago
Popularity opens other ways to make money. Open source is profitable for GNU. Cory Doctorow does fine.
ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 6 months ago
Most people who work on open source projects have a lucrative job and work on Open Source on the side. I also volunteer, but I still need a job that actually pays me as well.
Reading some of the comments here it feels like speaking to little children who believe money magically appears on their account.
aksdb@feddit.de 6 months ago
Tell me which so I can develop a competing service and steal your userbase!
iegod@lemm.ee 6 months ago
You need to disconnect the badness with the term stealing because you’re just wrong. Yeah it’s ip infringement. Yes it’s illegal. Yes people are impacted. And still… Not stealing.
Rough_N_Ready@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I have been for over 20 years actually!
ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 6 months ago
How did your employer pay your loans? Or did your money perhaps came from those people who actually do pay for in-game currency in your games?
otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
You aren’t.
ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 6 months ago
Yes I am. And the two companies I worked for both were small, offered their products for cheap and still had people pirating the modules or circumvent licensing terms. It’s a legit problem that a lot of people don’t see why they should pay for software simply because it’s sometimes easy to steal it.
CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
circumvent licensing terms
So to be clear: was it possible to purchase and own the software? Or did users have to pay a subscription for a license? Because personally I’m getting sick of every piece of software thinking it’s appropriate to require a subscription.
vsh@lemm.ee 6 months ago
Then you woke up.
You’re far away from becoming even a software tester. You are merely a little meaningless particle of sand in our software engineering society. You are the living representation of zero (0) when it comes to being employed by a good company.
Pratai@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
BINGPOT.
lolcatnip@reddthat.com 6 months ago
I am.
gapbetweenus@feddit.de 6 months ago
One of the great modern scams, was to convince society that unauthorized copying of data is somehow equivalent to taking away a physical object.
Coasting0942@reddthat.com 6 months ago
Jesus didn’t ask for permission to copy bread and fish. It’s a clear moral precedent that if you can copy you should.
What would the Jesus do?
Checkmate Atheists!
gapbetweenus@feddit.de 6 months ago
Jesus was the first pirate.
WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Nah, that would be Prometheus.
diannetea@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Wasn’t the idea and origin story of Jesus stolen from previous texts and religions lol
LemmysMum@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Athiests don’t have a problem with Middle-Eastern Socialist Jews, the ‘Christians’ sure do.
helenslunch@feddit.nl 6 months ago
Literally no one thinks that. But you know that already, don’t you?
It’s theft of intellectual property…
gapbetweenus@feddit.de 6 months ago
There is no such thing as intellectual property - you can not own a thought.
helenslunch@feddit.nl 6 months ago
Once again with the strawman.
Intellectual property is not a thought that you own. It’s an idea or digital creation. Something that actually takes time to make, often a whole lot of time. Something you never would have dedicated as much time to if you couldn’t be compensated for it.
I love how you guys play these mental gymnastics to justify this shit to yourselves.
schmidtster@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Than why are there “marketing” campaigns that use that slogan to denounce piracy?
SCB@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Honestly that’s only because people are intimidated by big words.
helenslunch@feddit.nl 6 months ago
Never heard of it.
merc@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Intellectual property is a scam, the term was invented to convince dumb people that a government-granted monopoly on the expression of an idea is the same thing as “property”.
You can’t “steal” intellectual property, you can only infringe on someone’s monopoly rights.
Katana314@lemmy.world 6 months ago
This feels like an easy statement to make when it applies to Disney putting out new Avatar movies. Then, suddenly, you realize how extensively it causes problems when you’re a photographer trying to get magazines to pay for copies of the once-in-a-lifetime photo you took, instead of re-printing it without your permission.
“InfORMaTioN wANts tO Be FrEe, yO.”
helenslunch@feddit.nl 6 months ago
That is absolutely 100% a completely insane position. The fact that you feel entitled to literally everything someone else creates it’s fucking horrific and you are a sad person.
lolcatnip@reddthat.com 6 months ago
If no one thinks that, why are you saying it right now?
Actual theft of intellectual property would involve somehow tricking the world into thinking you hold the copyright to something that someone else owns.
helenslunch@feddit.nl 6 months ago
…huh?
…no? What are you talking about? All it involves is illegally copying someone else’s work.
psud@aussie.zone 6 months ago
Nah, if I stole their IP, they wouldn’t have it anymore
helenslunch@feddit.nl 6 months ago
That’s not how that works.
ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 6 months ago
So you also believe people shouldn’t need a ticket for a concert, for example?
Cypher@aussie.zone 6 months ago
The performers time is not infinitely reproducible so your argument is apples and oranges.
ominouslemon@lemm.ee 6 months ago
But the time to create a novel, a videogame, or a news story is not infinitely reproducible, either. So when you are pirsting one of those things, you are actively reaping the benefits of someone’s time for free, like going to a concert without a ticket
Coasting0942@reddthat.com 6 months ago
But it is though: via the power of the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_television?wprov…
Though you could charge for the experience of other sweaty humans, bad ventilation in some cases, and the thrill of potentially being trampled
gapbetweenus@feddit.de 6 months ago
I don’t see anything wrong with paying for software or music or digital media. I don’t think that not doing so is theft - like I also don’t think that getting into a concert without paying is theft. By the way a concert is also not digital data, at least an irl one.
snooggums@kbin.social 6 months ago
Why do you hate libraries?
SCB@lemmy.world 6 months ago
A library card is your ticket there and libraries are paid via taxes, which is why they’re free at point of use.
Attending a free concert is not stealing. Breaking into the Eras tour is.
ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 6 months ago
Libraries get money via tax. What people here are arguing for is that others should work for them or free. Because game studios, for example, are overwhelmingly not paid via tax money. They are depending on people buying their software.
CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 6 months ago
Do you think I should be forced to pay for a ticket if I’m standing next to the concert venue on the sidewalk but can still hear the performance?
psud@aussie.zone 6 months ago
I have never had a problem with people taking a tape recorder to a concert, even if it’s against terms of service
ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 6 months ago
But you do understand that if nobody would buy a ticket, there wouldn’t be concerts?
dpkonofa@lemmy.world 6 months ago
It’s not a scam. It is equivalent to it in some ways and not in others. In a capitalist and globalist society (like the one we’re in), goods have a price and a value. Copying data can be done without a price but it can’t be done without value. If someone created something of value and our society rewards that value with money and people need that money to survive, pay their bills, and support their families, then it’s not possible to copy that data without depriving the creator of its value.
gapbetweenus@feddit.de 6 months ago
Still not theft.
dpkonofa@lemmy.world 6 months ago
It is theft. It’s theft of value and income rather than theft of a good, though. If you can’t admit that then you’re not here to have a good faith discussion of the topic. You’re just here to bloviate and validate your own opinion.
AeroLemming@lemm.ee 6 months ago
Not a lawyer, but most of what you said is true, except:
We’re talking about the theoretical value the creator might get if you decide to pay for something. If you never had any intention of paying to access something if you couldn’t find a pirated copy, no value has been lost by the creator due to copying the data and therefore no harm has been done. The requirement for criminal liability should be that a harm has been inflicted by you beyond any reasonable doubt. Piracy as a deprivation of monetary value can not ever meet this requirement. Of course, the actual requirement is that you have committed a crime beyond reasonable doubt, so if corrupt legislators make piracy a crime, the justice system can obviously charge you with it despite it being victimless, hence the scam.
dpkonofa@lemmy.world 6 months ago
What you just highlighted is still true, even if you disagree with it. The social contract of goods and services that underpins our entire economic system globally is that, in order to ingest a good (in this case, media), you’re agreeing to pay someone for the time that it took them to create that good in exchange for the value and enjoyment you get in ingesting it. If you never had an intention of paying and wouldn’t access it if you couldn’t find a pirated copy, then you’d move on and ingest something else, if that social contract was being upheld. The point being that, if you didn’t pay for it, you wouldn’t get to read/watch/listen to it. You can’t definitively say that no harm has been done because you can’t definitively say that you wouldn’t pay for it if that was an option. If piracy wasn’t an option but all your friends bought whatever and were constantly talking about it, you’d likely end up paying for it to be able to partake in those discussions. Game of Thrones, for example, was both the most-watched show on HBO and the most pirated show. If it wasn’t available to pirate, it’s dishonest to say that none of the people that did pirate it wouldn’t have paid for it and wouldn’t have watched it.