Piracy is not exactly the same as stealing though. When you steal for example orange from shop, shopkeeper has one less orange to sell, it's direct lose of actual sell. When you are pirating something you are making copy of the said product, in other words shopkeeper still have same amount of oranges to sell to other customers. It's of course debatable if piracy actually is reducing demand for product. There are studies saying it's not necessarily reducing demand, but even in some cases increase demand.
Sirnaq said:
That's all nice and in fact true, but that doesn't mean software piracy isn't theft, it is.
Again, theft is taking something that isn't rightfully yours. Nowhere does the definition of theft say that it must be a direct loss to the shopkeeper/developer/producer in order for it to be considered theft.
Then you have no real knowledge of the legal definition of theft, check it out, or hell check out your constitution on the matter of it versus copyright infringement.
You aren't taking away anything you are making a copy without the owner's consent, that's the point. That you disagree means squat in itself, present an argument for why it's stealing instead of just trumpeting your opinion on it.
EDIT: The biggest reason I have such a strong issue with calling pirates thieves is that for the vast majority of countries copyright infringement is a CIVIL offense, whereas theft, stealing and robbery are all CRIMINAL offenses.
You think that difference is irrelevant?
You aren't taking away anything you are making a copy without the owner's consent, that's the point. That you disagree means squat in itself, present an argument for why it's stealing instead of just trumpeting your opinion on it.
EDIT: The biggest reason I have such a strong issue with calling pirates thieves is that for the vast majority of countries copyright infringement is a CIVIL offense, whereas theft, stealing and robbery are all CRIMINAL offenses.
You think that difference is irrelevant?
Yeah, well that's one way to look at it. But let's stop for a second thinking in moral principals and let's talk from business perspective. Clever company (such as cdpr actually) is able to use or exploit various phenomenons for own benefit. Piracy is one such phenomenon, fighting with piracy with drm is one of the most contra-productive ways of doing it.Luc0s said:
CostinMoroianu said:
I just looked it up:
Theft: All crimes in which a person intentionally and fraudulently takes personal property of another without permission or consent and with the intent to convert it to the taker's use (including potential sale).
That's the legal definition of theft.
What I say isn't my opinion, it's fact. Taking a product that you don't rightfully own = theft, period. That's not opinion, that's fact.
Except the definition does not fit on a legal basis since you are not taking away anything. Try convicting a pirate for theft and the courts will laugh at you. Even the guys from TPB with their trial where accused and convicted of facilitation of copyright infringement.
So on what basis you claim it's fact? I checked your laws in your country and I got this
So on what basis you claim it's fact? I checked your laws in your country and I got this
Whoa, that's a great point. I thought going back and forth as to whether it was theft or copy right was a little silly, but now I see I was silly.
CostinMoroianu said:
Except I am taking it from anything. I'm taking it from the Dutch law. If you want to see the exact article:
Artikel 310 van het wettelijk strafrechtboek:
Hij die enig goed dat geheel of ten dele aan een ander toebehoort wegneemt, met het oogmerk om het zich wederrechtelijk toe te eigenen, wordt, als schuldig aan diefstal, gestraft met gevangenisstraf van ten hoogste vier jaren of geldboete van de vierde categorie.
Translated to English:
Article 310 of the law enforcement manual:
He who takes any property of someone else, either partially or fully, with the intent to use it or profit from it himself, will be prosecuted for theft, and will get sentenced with a jail sentence of 4 years maximum, or a fine of the fourth category.
Source: http://www.wetboek-online.nl/wet/Sr/310.html
I've backed up my claim with clear evidence. Now it's your turn to prove me wrong with actual evidence, instead of just hand-waving it away, without offering any evidence yourself.
No they won't. The court will agree with me.
The Pirate Bay trail is a whole different thing, because they guys behind TPB do not steal anything themselves, they simply make it possible to distribute software in an unlawful way, and thus indeed falls under copyright infringement, not theft. I thought you would know this.
On what I've shown you above.
Every now and then this topic rears its ugly head and every time it goes down the same tired road of bad analogies and poor rationalizations with a heavy dose of semantics, with a few bright spots like Guy and KoP (par for the course) and vivaxardas.
I thought the bakery example was funny... BTW, there are "overhearing" laws in corporate and financial circles.
I think "video game saved my life" is as silly as "video game made me kill my grandma with the toilet seat".
I think if you can't afford to buy a video game, chances are you can't afford the computer/internet or console it plays on.
I think it is silly to say "no stores in my country that sells them". Really? You can hit the torrent site half way around the world from where you are, but not GOG/Steam/Gamestop/Amazon/etc etc etc etc?
I don't think I ever heard the term "I am going to copyright-infringe cable".
I bet most people, like me, don't read the credits when they roll after you finish a game. But I guess we should do sometimes, and when we do, we should count how many people are listed in them, and think for a minute, all of those people we paid good money for a number of years to come up with a video game, and still that's not the entire cost of producing a video game: you have overhead like office building lease/utilities/maintenance, electricity, computer equipment, etc etc etc etc... a so called AAA game can cost $100,000,000 to produce, and the people who put up that kind of money, expect to sell their product, and that product is a license to use the software they bankrolled, not the software itself.
Now, excuse me while I drive without a license, and tap into the electric box...
I thought the bakery example was funny... BTW, there are "overhearing" laws in corporate and financial circles.
I think "video game saved my life" is as silly as "video game made me kill my grandma with the toilet seat".
I think if you can't afford to buy a video game, chances are you can't afford the computer/internet or console it plays on.
I think it is silly to say "no stores in my country that sells them". Really? You can hit the torrent site half way around the world from where you are, but not GOG/Steam/Gamestop/Amazon/etc etc etc etc?
I don't think I ever heard the term "I am going to copyright-infringe cable".
I bet most people, like me, don't read the credits when they roll after you finish a game. But I guess we should do sometimes, and when we do, we should count how many people are listed in them, and think for a minute, all of those people we paid good money for a number of years to come up with a video game, and still that's not the entire cost of producing a video game: you have overhead like office building lease/utilities/maintenance, electricity, computer equipment, etc etc etc etc... a so called AAA game can cost $100,000,000 to produce, and the people who put up that kind of money, expect to sell their product, and that product is a license to use the software they bankrolled, not the software itself.
Now, excuse me while I drive without a license, and tap into the electric box...
You haven't backed it with anything since you still haven't proved that a pirate is taking something from someone. You can hand wave that and say they are but prove it.
Oh will they? Give me one example of a court case where a pirate who downloaded a song, movie or game was convicted based on theft laws versus copyright infringement laws. I'd love to see it.
Big surprise is it not, but welcome to reality. I am sure it's hard for you to grasp that but it is so, I don't expect someone living in the first world to understand it though.
Just because one has internet doesn't mean he has the digital stores available in their country.
EDIT: Also even if you have said services doesn't mean you can every game. For instance due to my location I cannot purchase Batman: Arkham Asylum or Arkham City in my country thanks to their DRM.
Sirnaq said:
And I agree with everything you say, really. It's not as if I'm blind to the damage that bad DRM can cause. But we should not try to sugarcoat piracy here, because that's what it looks like some of us are doing to me, perhaps unintentionally.
Piracy is against the law and under no circumstances is piracy justified. I hope we can at least agree on that.
Another significant point that, for me at least, holds hope DRM enforcers will realize they're slipping on the noose they tied for themselves.
CostinMoroianu said:
Are you kidding me? If piracy isn't taking something that doesn't belong to you, than what is it?
Like I got time for that. Court cases based on pirated software are probably quite rare and I doubt such cases even exist in The Netherlands.
That said, regardless of how the court deals with piracy (or how the court doesn't deal with piracy, as I have yet to find a court case based on software piracy), it's beyond a doubt that in laymen's terms, software piracy is theft. You're taking something that doesn't rightfully belong to you. That's what we usually call theft Costin.
But please, lets not argue to much about frigging semantics. Piracy is bad, whether you acknowledge it as theft or not.
Piracy is illegal (depending on the country), but its not theft no mater how much you want it to be?Luc0s said:
dragonbird said:
I did, otherwise I probably wouldn't have posted in it.
And don't get me wrong, I am very happy about it. I was mainly referring to the initial discussion, where some of my posts were deleted with the argument, that I was promoting piracy, which I object to, because I definitely don't, and wanted to make myself clear on that. So I felt misrepresented on my opinion. I can however agree, that it was off topic in the other thread and that the discussion didn't have its place there. I just wish, the discussion could have been moved here, instead of deleted. But everything has been said now anyway, so there is nothing to add for me anymore. It will just go round in circles otherwise. Say what you want about the pirate bay, but my thoughts towards it are no different than the brothel outside Helselt's camp. I don't know, nor do I want to know, who seeded where or where they came from.
You call it semantics, I call it the difference between a criminal action and a civil offense action. You don't see the difference between a jail term and a bloody fine?
Whether or not it is bad is IRRELEVANT to whether or not it's theft, and it isn't, and again you are not taking away anything from anyone. You are making a copy ( or are you going to deny the fact that's how file sharing works? ).
Then why are there copyright infringement laws which are designed to specifically deal with this and based on which those who illegally download are judged. You cannot argue the legal specifics on this one.
The irony is that TPBs popularity came in part ( or maybe a large part ) due to the legal action taken against them by media companies who wanted it shut down.
CostinMoroianu said:
That is complete bullcrap. Software piracy or copyright infringement can be treated as either a criminal offense or a civil offense and it solely depends on a case by case basis. It's the same with theft in general by the way.
Theft will sometimes be treated as a a civil offense, sometimes as a criminal offense. Sometimes you'll be thrown in jail for theft, sometimes you'll be merely fined for theft, depending on the severity of the case.
I doubt anyone will ever be thrown in jail for illegally downloading a couple of video-game for personal use. That doesn't mean it isn't theft.
EDIT: So yes, this really is just a semantics issue, nothing more, nothing less. But personally, I can't buy the whole "software piracy isn't theft" bullcrap. It sounds too much like people are just trying to be apologetic for piracy, pretending that what they do isn't all that bad. I'm not saying you're doing that, just people in general.