The war of semantics is about as intelligent as the tweet that went viral where someone criticized trains requiring tickets. “Why are you charging me to get on? You’re going that way anyway.”
Comment on Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing"
merc@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Piracy was never stealing, it was only copyright infringement.
Stealing is a crime that goes back to the 10 commandments, it’s old. When you steal something you take it from someone else, depriving them of it.
Copyright infringement is a newish crime where the government has granted a megacorporation a 120 year monopoly on the expression of an idea. If you infringe that copyright, they still have the original, and can keep selling copies of that original to everyone else, but they might miss out on the opportunity to make a sale to you. Obviously, that’s very different from stealing something.
Katana314@lemmy.world 9 months ago
abuttifulpigeon@lemmy.world 9 months ago
An associate of mine defines stealing as, “taking (either by cloning or removing) something (either digital or physical) of which is not of your original possession”
If anyone has a rebuttal, please help.
OmegaPillar@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
It’s not really a rebuttal, but by that assessment, a person may not view a webpage, as the browser copies files from a distant browser for viewing.
Phrodo_00@lemmy.world 9 months ago
It’s because that’s not a common definition and it’s not even a good one. No normal person would call cloning stealing. Also, this completely misses lending, gifting, downloading a webpage or even renting. All of those would be stealing under this definition.
poopkins@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Hi, welcome to the Technology community here on Lemmy! Discourse is not tolerated here, so please just tack on your endorsement of piracy and leave your civility at the door.
abuttifulpigeon@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I never endorsed it. Sure, it may be justified, but that doesn’t make it legal.
poopkins@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Whoa whoa, we don’t take kindly to people telling us that. Only a boot-licking, brain-dead, corporate shill wouldn’t outright endorse piracy. Take your nuance somewhere else, pal!
TheDezzick@lemm.ee 9 months ago
It’s not so much a rebuttal, but ask if they think stealing has any relation to depriving another person of something. Imo, they have a correct, though extremely narrow, definition of stealing that doesn’t leave any nuance for comparing different kinds of stealing. Piracy, or as they would say ‘stealing digital media’ is not a kind of stealing that deprives another person of that thing, so clearly it’s somewhat different than stealing money or physical property.
If they aren’t willing to entertain that there are different kinds of stealing then they’re ignorant of reality and it might not be worth your time to try to change their mind.
merc@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Who cares what your associate uses as a definition, stealing / theft has long established definitions. You can just point and laugh and say that your associate doesn’t actually understand the words he/she is using.
You could say that you define agreeing as “thinking someone is completely wrong”, and that you agree with your associate.
blusterydayve26@midwest.social 9 months ago
Stealing is a crime that goes back to the 10 commandments, it’s old.
Not exactly. The original translation from Hebrew was closer to “thou shall not kidnap,” arresting control of a person’s personal boundaries and will, not a violation of personal property, which didn’t really exist as a concept at the time.
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
The irony is, you pirating today has been shown to influence you buying it later on in a sale. And there’s a good argument to be made about your word of mouth praise helping their sales.
Chakravanti@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Yup. I’m about to suggest about half a dozen people to watch a movie on Netflix I pirated last night. I have “suggested” to a few dozen people to watch Hulu for Firefly.
They don’t get my money because I don’t give a flying fuck about the extortion of the people this tyrrany that’s been running since Crowley and even longer. Looks free but there was never an end to slavery. It just stopped giving a shit about your color. To counter, goes over everyone’s head one way or another. Doesn’t matter. All life will die on this planet in less than a decade.
poopkins@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Holy moly that comment took a turn.
Chakravanti@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Yeah, but did you get it at the “counter?”
qwerty@discuss.tchncs.de 9 months ago
Jesse, WTF are you talking about?
Chakravanti@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Sucks being uneducated, especially when folks don’t care to help because you’re a condescending dick about it. Not to mention religiously expletive.
madcaesar@lemmy.world 9 months ago
RIP
Chakravanti@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Ditto.
poopkins@lemmy.world 9 months ago
As every musician knows, exposure is always better than payment! This is why you shouldn’t offer payment to musicians at your wedding, since they’re getting great exposure already. /s
Gonzako@lemmy.world 9 months ago
That’s two very different cases. Using exposure to extort services out people is different than copying something to see if you’d enjoy it.
poopkins@lemmy.world 9 months ago
It’s really not that different. The main difference is the audience size. For an independent musician selling merchandise, it would be equally insulting to them to tell them that they will be repaid in exposure if they give you one for free.
Making a copy of something “to see if you’d enjoy it” or because it’s somehow great for their exposure is mental gymnastics to justify piracy. Let’s just call it intellectual property theft and stop beating around the bush.
PrincessZelda@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Biggest personal examples are Minecraft and FL Studio. I asked my parents to buy Minecraft for me after a week of pirating it, and I bought an FL Studio license when I could afford to, nearly a decade after I first used it. I don’t use it much, but it felt right.
KpntAutismus@lemmy.world 9 months ago
yup, pirated jedi: fallen order. liked the game very much, but jedi: survivor wasn’t cracked yet. so i bought a key for 30€.
the problem is: it runs like shit, because it’s a bad PS5 port and denuvo probably also has an effect on that.
i will never buy from EA again.
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
It likely was the fault of denuvo, which ironically piracy would strip improving the experience.