Using commercial software without paying for it is, in general, stealing.
But here are a bunch of things that are not stealing:
- Using commercial software on a country other than where it was made available for sale
- Using commercial software after the vendor no longer wants you to
- Using commercial software in ways the vendor doesn’t like, such as on a device the vendor doesn’t approve of
- Using commercial software on multiple devices, provided you use it on only one of them at a time
- Making a backup copy of commercial software so you don’t lose it if the original copy is lost
- Giving others a copy of commercial software that is no longer available for sale
- Modifying commercial software to make it more enjoyable, such as by removing user-hostile misfeatures
- Reverse engineering commercial software to learn how it works
Note that several of these items (such as cracking cheat protection in a multiplayer game) enable you to use commercial software in a way that unfairly harms others (such as cheating in a multiplayer game). That’s not stealing, but it is wrong in other ways.
Its still not theft by legal means.
If no one loses anything they never had in the first place it is not stealing
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
includedespecially.Which is why I think it is probably more immoral to play by their rules. But in the end I pirate cause I’m poor.
deleted by creator
ITT: people trying to find legal loopholes to try and justify not paying digital artists for thier work
When you purchase a movie or show you’re still not paying digital artists. You’re paying some corporation who cooks their books to make profit disappear so they can keep it all for themselves. Have you not been following the writer/actor strike currently happening?
Lol “digital artists.”
Most pirated content is pornography. While I do consider those performers and creators “artists,” the victims of piracy are the corporations and production companies that sell pornography. This is an industry rife with corruption and exploitation. The artists actually benefit from the, ahem, exposure, and the same can be said for television, movie, and music industries. Artists want people to pay to experience their art, but artists are better able to sell their art when the artist is well known. GoT was the most pirated TV show at it’s peak popularity, and the creatos said it was better for viewership than winning an Emmy.
Yes, piracy is analogous to stealing, semantics notwithstanding. But when art is a commodity, the capitalist, not the artist, is the primary beneficiary.
Lol what? Artists can’t pay rent with exposure
Well then they better talk to the people who hired them not us.
No one in this thread is trying to justify piracy. Everyone in this thread is rightfully saying that the comparison to theft is wrong.
That’s it.
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.
And where would that be?
EU.
Well…Where he lives… /shrug
Or you could just not give a flying fuck about the moral and ethical aspects and go on with your life.
Or you could understand that you are doing nothing wrong and don’t drink the corporate Kool aid
Live the unexamined life? But then who will pay attention to me?
deleted by creator
Forgery would be the comparable crime. But it is definitely not stealing/theft.
Forgery is a specific type of fraud where the copy is presented as an original. I’d say it’s closer, but it’s definitely not a 1:1 accurate comparison
In some cases not even a “crime/illegal”.
I’m just here to see where everyone else is placed on the chart.
Talk about blowing smoke up your own ass.
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”
I feel so stupid: what’s saltyflix lol
Haha, it’s just a play on my user name and netflix
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?
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.
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.
but it’s a lot easier to just be real about what we are doing here.
That’s always the most frustrating part about these “debates.” So many people make up BS excuses they know are just excuses instead of just owning up to what they - and probably we - are doing. Just take responsibility for your actions. Don’t insult my intelligence with stuff we both know is nonsense.
-
“It’s for game/movie/TV preservation!” - someone who has no archival experience or affiliation with a group that makes use of this media which also happens to only consist of things the individual enjoys.
-
“The record companies are screwing artists over!” - someone who has put no effort into finding other ways to support the artist and pirates from artists who have good relationships with their labels or even self-publish.
-
“I didn’t take anything from the person!” - someone who wouldn’t want their writing/art/etc. taken and shared without their permission.
It’s just not stealing, you guys can whine all you want and twist the meaning of stealing to a fifth graders understanding but it doesn’t change the fact that it is not stealing. Is it wrong or right? That’s another debate that is worth having,but weather or not it’s “stealing” has an obvious answer which is no. There is no debate
sadfasdf
What’s ridiculous about it? Morals are subjective.
If I copy a movie that came out 80 years ago and everyone involved with it is now dead, who am I supposedly ‘stealing’ from or depriving of anything? Some faceless corporation who claims ownership over someone else’s work? How about cases where a movie or show isn’t available to buy in your area? Who’s getting deprived of anything there?
You can keep your morals to yourself where they belong.
asdfasfasd
-
By your own definition, if you TAKE it, you stole it. Nothing is taken.
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.
asfsadf
I’m pretty sure criminal copyright has a value threshold of like $1,000, or it has to be done for profit. But I cba looking up the law right now.
It also varies across the world, different countries have different legislation. However at its core, copyright infringement is a civil offense, criminal copyright infringement is an exception (and a relatively new one at that) but not the norm.
asfasdf
So you’re doing something you personally believe is unethical and your argument is that we should also follow your belief that it is unethical, while we continue to do it? If you genuinely feel it’s unethical, why are you even doing it? Just stop lol
🤡
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)
One can even argue that the tools needed to avoid IP are already here: crowdfunding models, commissions, and Patreon-esque income, and likely in the near future, universal basic income - you can consider the government/taxes subsidising your ability to create art if you’re starting from zero skills/connections/reach or from scratch with a specific project. With these, why does the author even retain total IP? Their project is funded by the community, so it’d make sense that the creator and the community had a more symbiotic relationship rather than the parasitic one where the author is effectively a digital landlord and dictator with complete control over the project.
Burning down someone’s house is closer to stealing than copyright infringement, though. Afterwards, they don’t have a house anymore, but with copying they’d still have the data.
I prefer to compare it to joyriding. There are separate crimes for theft of a car and for joyriding. If you get caught taking a car, you might argue that you just wanted to go for a drive, and never intended to permanently deprive the owner. In that case, it would be hard to convict you of theft, because theft requires an intent to deprive the owner. Instead, they go for joyriding, which has a different bar.
Even then, though, joyriding is still a crime. Basic copyright infringement is not a crime, it’s a civil offense.
Joyriding depreciates the car. Plus most of the time the gas is not refilled. This is stealing.
Scratching a car also depreciates its value, would you argue that is stealing also?
I wasn’t trying to give a perfect analogy, anyway. Joyriding is a lesser form of theft, with a lower barrier to conviction. Copyright infringement also has a lower barrier to conviction, however it’s completely different to theft (and joyriding) in that it is not a crime.
Stealing requires using something for yourself. Like that gasoline was used or joyriding itself was used. Scratching a car is just vandalizing. What object you are stealing by vandalizing?
You argued that joyriding was theft because it depreciates value.
Isn’t scratching a car stealing the resale value? The owner has to pay to get it fixed to restore the value. Therefore, vandalism is theft. Quod erat up your demonstrandum :)
Also, assault is theft (of peace of mind), rape is theft (of trust), flaying someone alive is theft (of skin).
If you want to stretch the definition of theft to include any harm, even without depriving someone of their property (i.e. the actual definition), you make the word meaningless. There are already words for other crimes.
Embedding image directly for mobile users:
Is this the same way for memes in comments?
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?
“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’m so split on this as a person who has dated (for a long while) a guy who works in wardrobe on film and TV sets. Yes i still pirate, but i also buy the things i love and appreciate. I know those sales go into his pay and unfortunately those billionaires pockets.
