Comment on Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing"
snooggums@kbin.social 9 months agoSomeone sharing content on a peer to peer distribution network is not using the digital distribution service of whoever sold the content. They are not 'stealing' HBOs bandwidth to share Game of Thrones.
They are sharing a thing that they initially paid for from HBO at no cost to others, similar to letting your friends watch it with you on your TV at the same time. The only difference is scale.
SCB@lemmy.world 9 months ago
HBOs service is “provide access to GoT”
If you provide access to GoT, by acquiring their content and then redistributing it, you are stealing the same way you pimping your prostitute is stealing.
snooggums@kbin.social 9 months ago
Piracy is used to equate copyright infringement with theft.
Is drawing your own Mickey Mouse and selling it theft? You did all the work and took nothing from Disney.
If you make a copy of Mickey Mouse at no cost to Disney and sell it, is that theft? You took nothing from Disney.
If you have a really good hamburger at McDonald's, make your own copy and sell it at your stores is it theft? No, and that is where the Big Mac came from, a copy of someone else's work.
Copyright infringement is not theft. Not all copies of something are copyright infringement. Pimping someone is human trafficking, not theft.