this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
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This is so fucking stupid. If you steal a physical item, say, a block of cheese, it is no longer in the possession of the shop, and can't be sold to someone else. The cheesemonger will have to make another block to sell.
If you copy and paste a bunch of 1's and 0's, the original is still there. How was that theft? Does the original still exist?
Is watching a movie at a drive in from outside the lot with a pair of binoculars theft? If you can hear a copyrighted song from your neighbours yard, is that theft? Taping a movie when it airs on TV with a VHS, is that theft?
If you tell a joke and I start to word for word retelling your joke then I haven't stolen your joke? After all the joke still exists in your head.
If you have an excellent idea, for the sake of scale let's say it's a million dollar idea, but you don't have the means to realize that idea. Now let's say I heard of your idea and I can realize the idea and make millions off it. Have I stolen your idea? The idea still exists in your mind but it's no longer a million dollar idea because I already made millions from it.
If someone scrapes the web for your activity to create a profile of you (which is for instace what Facebook does) is that stealing your data? After all none of your data goes missing
Similarly if someone hacks your bank and takes your financial and personal data the bank holds, is it not stealing? Does it magically turn into stealing if after taking your data they delete all the data from the banks system? What if they encrypt it without deleting, effectively making the data impossible for the bank to use?