
No, Silly, Piracy is Theft - pbnaidu
http://www.devtopics.com/no-silly-piracy-is-theft/
======
pg
The mistake in this analogy is that the stars in boxes represent things one
already has, while the dollar signs represent things one might get in the
future.

Causing someone not to get income they might otherwise have gotten is not
theft. If it were, giving someone bad financial advice would also be theft.

Because taking something someone already has is so much more serious than
causing them not to get something they hoped to get in the future, we have a
specially bad word just for this situation: theft. And the RIAA and MPAA
deliberately misuse this word in order to make file sharing seem worse than it
actually is.

~~~
blogimus
I would say " _A_ mistake" rather than " _The_ mistake."

Another mistake in this analogy is that between criminal and civil law. Theft,
in most if not all countries, is a criminal offense.

Piracy, formally known as copyright infringement (or copyright violation), is
a criminal offense when done for financial gain, civil offense otherwise in
countries which recognize software copyright. The vast majority of occurrences
of copyright violation we see in the media are for personal use, not financial
gain, thereby a largely civil legal matter, than a criminal one. Hence theft
as a comparison is inaccurate.

~~~
alex_c
That's what annoys me about this endless argument. The entire reason it's
endless is because it confuses and mingles legal and moral aspects:

\- Yes, it's illegal. I don't think anyone actually argues it's not, but
somehow it still keeps popping up as an argument to support that it's theft.

\- Legally, as far as I know, theft and copyright infringement have very
different meanings. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm willing to bet that neither are
any of the people arguing piracy=theft. Anyway, I don't really see how arguing
and personal opinions can come into this. The law is what it is.

\- Morally, it's hard to argue that it's right, but at least this is the only
part where you CAN actually have any kind of debate.

People arguing about different things without realizing it = recipe for
endless, unproductive argument.

~~~
demallien
I totally agree. This stupid argument comes about for one reason, and one
reason only: the law has not yet caught up with technology.

No, it's not stealing. Yes it is wrong - if you don't pay for creative
content, content creators won't create, which is a bad outcome for society
(and no, don't give me any crap about people creating for free - sure, some
might, but I certainly wouldn't be spending my weekends and nights writing an
application if I didn't think I'd get some money for it, and I doubt that I'm
rare!).

This is where governments are supposed to do their jobs - create laws to
encourage desirable behaviour. For example, they could start passing laws to
make it illegal to publicly share copyright-protected works. They could also
make it illegal to facilitate the sharing of copyright-protected works,
putting operations such as TPB under pressure.

Better than just making it a law, make it one of the conditions of membership
in the WTO - it's a logical activity for the WTO anyhow, seeing as an
increasing percentage of world trade is IP. That way, there is a powerful tool
available to force compliance at an international level.

~~~
pretzel
>I certainly wouldn't be spending my weekends and nights writing an
application if I didn't think I'd get some money for it, and I doubt that I'm
rare

<http://www.gnu.org/>

<http://www.linux.org/>

<http://www.freebsd.org/>

<http://www.apache.org/>

<http://www.mysql.com/>

<http://www.mozilla.org/>

And Python, Perl and PHP...

I think enough people who spend their lives working for free to make it
worthwhile!

~~~
jauco
Indeed, money is but one potential reward. Social recognition is another.

Though I think most of free software is written for the 'finally this thing
does what I want it to do' reward.

------
carlio
People need to stop thinking of piracy as theft or not theft. It's a digitally
reproducible item which makes traditional concepts of property obsolete and
it's about time the law and the record industry started coming up with terms
which match this status.

Piracy does not take money away from sellers. It reduces how much they get.
This is not the same thing.

The best example I heard was this: say you're a baker and you sell bread. One
day it starts raining bread, and people pick up their bread from the street
rather than pay for yours. It sucks for you that you aren't getting money from
your bread, but how can you blame people for what they're doing?

Price is dictated by supply and demand, and there's now a supply which is
infinite and therefore, by traditional economics, surely it should be free?

I don't agree that you should be able to get stuff from artists etc for free.
I make a point of paying for the albums I download if I like them, and I pay
for movies and TV I like. But it's not a question of ethics, it's a question
of what exactly it is you're paying or not paying for.

Why exactly do so many newspapers publish content for free? Surely it's the
same idea - they're publishers after all…?

~~~
lunchbox
_"The best example I heard was this: say you're a baker and you sell bread.
One day it starts raining bread, and people pick up their bread from the
street rather than pay for yours. It sucks for you that you aren't getting
money from your bread, but how can you blame people for what they're doing?"_

Inaccurate analogy. The baker played no part in making it rain bread. Software
developers and other producers of content invest their time, money, and life
into creating the product that gets disseminated. If they see that the product
of their labor will get pirated, they will be less inclined to innovate and
produce more in the future.

 _"Price is dictated by supply and demand, and there's now a supply which is
infinite and therefore, by traditional economics, surely it should be free?"_

No. You are committing the fallacy of confusing descriptive economics with
normative economics. Saying what will be is not the same as saying what should
be. As an example: if I hack into your server, steal your startup's source
code, and release it on BitTorrent, your startup's product will become free.
That doesn't mean it _should_ be free.

~~~
carlio
I disagree that it's an inaccurate analogy, but I agree that piracy will
reduce innovation in its current state. I'm saying that, as it stands, the
fundamental idea of selling something which is free to duplicate is broken.

------
noodle
no, silly, piracy is not theft. piracy is piracy, its not a theft or not theft
issue, its a different animal.

the rebuttal makes the assumption that pirates will actually pay for the item
if they can't get it for free. 90% (i made this number up) of pirates would
not pay for the item that they're pirating. hypothetically, if i were unable
to pirate photoshop, i'd use gimp instead. i wouldn't go buy photoshop.

so, piracy does not steal income.

~~~
lunchbox
OK, accepting your made-up figure of 90%, what about the other 10% who would
pay for the item they're pirating?

~~~
duhblow7
The simple fact that you can divide the users downloading copyrighted material
into multiple groups would mean that the term 'piracy' is a broader term.

it's like piracy is the main subject and theft or non-theft piracy would be
the stubs.

    
    
              PIRACY
             /      \
      LOST REVENUE  NO LOST REVENUE
            |               |
          THEFT          NOT THEFT
    

Piracy is not theft. This is one of those...a square is a rectangle but a
rectangle isn't a square...type of deals, or maybe not.

~~~
boredguy8
You're inappropriately focusing on revenue and not access. Suppose I had a
goose that laid golden eggs /ad infinitum/. I have infinite net worth, but if
you take one of my eggs, you now have access to value which you otherwise
wouldn't have had. Just because your theft didn't impact my revenue it doesn't
follow that you didn't steal.

IP is actually quite similar. Suppose I wrote a book (.pdf) that contains
important business information about the future of the oil market. I obtained
this information at great personal cost. Your accessing that information
doesn't remove that information from me, but it's still stealing access to
information you otherwise wouldn't have had.

Saying, "But I wasn't going to buy your crappy business book anyway!" doesn't
change the fact that you've still taken information that doesn't belong to
you.

------
brlewis
I think we all know piracy is not theft. It's robbery and murder at sea.
Infringement is not theft either as best I can tell. But ask a lawyer if the
question pertains to your specific situation.

~~~
tjpick
I just recently went to a RMS talk, and this is what he said too. (I
paraphrase)

Piracy is people in boats killing other people and stealing their stuff. What
about software piracy? As far as I know, pirates use guns and boats, not
software.

What people are talking about when they say "software piracy" is "sharing".

------
yters
Another lame argument I hear is that all IP is essentially some number, and
since you can't copyright a number, there is no such thing as IP.

~~~
tocomment1
That's a good argument

~~~
carlio
<http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/01/Jun/pi.html>

~~~
tocomment
Has anyone found anything copyrighted in Pi yet? That would be awsome to share
at song by saying "the 1e74 + 2 digit of Pi for 6000 digits."

------
blogimus
"Piracy" is just as inappropriate and ridiculous as "theft" as a term to
describe illegal copying or copyright infringement. Call it what it is,
"illegal copying." It fits its own class, not theft of hard goods on land or
piracy on the high seas.

"Arggg, what seas you be sailing, matey?"

How did the word "piracy" ever get attributed to this? Just to make it more
sensational, more _evil_?

~~~
bct
I'm OK with calling it "piracy", because nobody is in danger of confusing the
details and effects of copyright infringement with those of real piracy. This
is not the case with the word "theft".

~~~
dfranke
It also allows for a lot of silly pirate humor that would not otherwise be
possible.

------
dfranke
In constructing his analogy the author seems to take it as given that sneaking
into a movie theater is theft. I don't consider that theft. I consider it
piracy plus trespassing.

------
nuclear_eclipse
> A much better analogy for digital piracy is sneaking into a theater to watch
> a movie. You are not stealing a copy of that movie, and the theater is free
> to show the movie to others. But you are stealing revenue that the theater
> would have earned had you rightfully purchased a ticket.

Last I heard, you don't get sued/fined thousands of dollars for sneaking into
a movie theater....

~~~
tptacek
You also don't get sued or fined thousands of dollars for stealing a candy
bar.

------
mrtron
Piracy is a strange beast, but it is definitely NOT theft.

If I download a song - it does not directly negatively impact the artist. They
aren't out anything.

The indirect impact on the artist is another matter. They are potentially out
of a sale that could have otherwise happened without the piracy. However, they
are also potentially gaining a sale from a user who would have not normally
purchased their music, but downloaded and decided to buy. Just like listening
to a song on the radio isn't theft - yet if you are only listening to the
radio and not buying music are you stealing?

It most certainly should not carry harsher penalties than physical theft.
Downloading a song should not result in a 1000$ penalty while a physical theft
of a CD results in a lesser penalty.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
"However, they are also potentially gaining a sale from a user who would have
not normally purchased their music, but downloaded and decided to buy."

The analogy breaks down because music and other forms of media are just pure
information, so there is no reason to buy it if you already downloaded it,
especially as the friction of obtaining an illegal copy is reduced to zero.

~~~
mrtron
I read this: <http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/> and then purchased the book
later on.

Why? Because I found it was a useful book and wanted to support the author and
own a physical copy. I also would have never purchased the book if I hadn't
been able to go through it first online.

I realize that I wasn't pirating - but the analogy doesn't break down in the
manner you suggest.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Buying a physical copy of a book is a little different, as it does offer some
additional benefit (in terms of portability, different medium, whatever).
However, let's say that your argument is that some people will like the author
and "buy" a copy of the music they already have, even though that copy offers
zero additional benefit to the consumer.

That's a donation, not a purchase.

~~~
shard
Buying a physical copy of music in the form of a CD confers addition benefits
over a downloaded MP3 as well, one of which is the higher quality of
uncompressed 16 bit audio (or better, if SACD or DVD-Audio versions are
available).

~~~
rms
You can get flac rips at private music trackers like waffles. The library is
comparable to if not better than itunes. There are some 24 bit rips out there
but not very many.

------
tlrobinson
If you're going to get all pedantic about these terms, certainly you must
bring up the _actual_ definition of "piracy":

 _Piracy is a robbery committed at sea, or sometimes on the shore, without a
commission from a sovereign nation._

That said, whatever you want to call it, it's hard to deny it's illegal in
many places. If you're ok with breaking the law, and you think it's moral to
"pirate", then by all means go ahead.

~~~
mindslight
_it's hard to deny it's illegal in many places. If you're ok with breaking the
law, and you think it's moral to "pirate"_

It may be illegal, but that does not mean a pirate is breaking the law. The
basis of piracy is to sovereignly act, without blessing from the land
oligopoly. A pirate may be attacked by a nation, but the concept of law is
absent from such interaction.

~~~
tlrobinson
I was referring to piracy of intellectual property. I should have been more
clear.

------
byrneseyeview
I'd like the author of this post to know that to the extent that he persuades
people that piracy is bad, and they are thus less likely to share things on
peer-to-peer networks, he is forcing me to pay for stuff I'd otherwise
download. This is not 'stealing revenue', but it is burdening me with expenses
-- and at the bottom line, that's the same thing.

So I'll assume he's consistent in his moral principles once the check clears.

------
m0shen
In his attempt to provide a better analogy, the author's is no better than the
"stealing" example: "A much better analogy for digital piracy is sneaking into
a theater to watch a movie. You are not stealing a copy of that movie, and the
theater is free to show the movie to others. But you are stealing revenue that
the theater would have earned had you rightfully purchased a ticket."

The movie theater has costs associated with the playing of said movie. It pays
employees, cashiers, ushers, cleaners, licensing fees, operators... etc etc...
These costs are covered by the revenue from said ticket purchase. On the other
hand, when a pirated copy is made, there is absolutely no ADDITIONAL cost to
the content's creator(s). Actually, people typically use their own resources
(time especially) to reproduce these works.

As previously stated, this new medium needs new rules and new ways to
participate.

Besides, last time I checked the people complaining the loudest about piracy
benefit the most from it.

------
dionidium
I think part of what gets confused in these discussions is that there are (at
least) two reasons we might restrict a behavior: 1) because the act itself
causes harm; 2) because allowing the act to occur will lead to an undesirable
outcome.

Historically, copyright law is type (2) -- specifically, it's a response to
the threat that creators will not create without financial incentive. The
copying isn't itself undesirable; we're more interested in encouraging a
specific outcome.

Where most of the purportedly analogous arguments go wrong is that they
describe actions that are type (1).

As an example, lots of people here are suggesting that a better analogy to
file sharing is the act of sneaking into a movie theater. But this seems
pretty clearly to be a case of an act that is restricted due to (1); that is,
it's illegal because it's trespassing, which is undesirable in its own right.

------
philh
>A much better analogy for digital piracy is sneaking into a theater to watch
a movie. You are not stealing a copy of that movie, and the theater is free to
show the movie to others. But you are stealing revenue that the theater would
have earned had you rightfully purchased a ticket.

Some cinemas are set up to facilitate sneaking in: having passed the usher to
get into one film, you can then stay and watch any number you like.

This is semi-deliberate: it turns out that they gain more money from people
who wouldn't otherwise bother, than they lose from people who would otherwise
buy two.

Maybe these people are committing "theft", but it's still a mutually
beneficial relationship. This doesn't obviously apply to most internet piracy,
as in that case nothing is bought at all, but it's worth considering.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
I'd like to see some evidence or indication that this is deliberate on any
level.

~~~
noonespecial
I had friends who worked in a local theater and we hung out there quite a bit.
The manager was locally famous for instructing employees to turn a blind eye
to "lurkers" because "If you stay in a movie theater that long, you're gonna
be hungry and thirsty eventually".

Turns out that the rental on the reels was so high that the ticket sales
themselves were basically a break even proposition. $7 popcorn and $4 sodas
are a completely different story.

------
mattmaroon
Isn't this all just semantics? It all just depends on how you define theft.
From what I understand, given the legal definition, it generally (but not
always) is not exactly theft.

------
randallsquared
Leaving aside whether pirates would pay for the item, the idea that someone
has a right to future sales is wrong. The guy who opens a competing business
"hurts" Best Buy in exactly the same way that a pirate does, but this doesn't
mean that he's actually taken anything from them, because they don't own
future sales -- they only _hope_ to eventually own them.

[Edit: but, reading down the page, I see that pg already made a similar point
more concisely. Oh, well. :) ]

------
bart111
to understand that it does not steal income, you would need to live in place
where authorized copy of MS Office exceeds net month salary of an Engineer.
Would you pay one month salary for MS Windows? This is something that Western
companies just do not understand when making business in Eastern Europe,
China, Vietnam. When they hire guys to work for 300usd a month that's
perfectly fine. When they offer software written by Indians for the same price
in India as in the US - they consider it normal too? Very interesting logic.

I make over 100usd/hr and I pay for my software. My colleges in developing
countries make it in a week and I don't blame them for copying software.
Otherwise they would stay forever poor instead of learning stuff.

