Comment

Comment on Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing"

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.

source

Sort:hotnew top

gapbetweenus@feddit.de ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Still not theft.

source
- dpkonofa@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨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.
  
  source
  - schmidtster@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    So it’s theft if a lend a book to someone since they didnt pay for it…?
    
    source
    dpkonofa@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    You’re just being dishonest now. I’ve answered this several times. If you’re lending or giving someone a book, you’re limited by the very physical nature of the fact that it’s an actual book. That’s not the same as pirating digital content or copying a book (which requires physical resources and costs). Your disingenuous attitude might work on children but it’s unwelcome in this discussion.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
AeroLemming@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Not a lawyer, but most of what you said is true, except:

then it’s not possible to copy that data without depriving the creator of its value.

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.

source
- dpkonofa@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨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.
  
  source