this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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Theft isn't specific to property, you can steal services too.
The water is certainly muddy with digital media, but this is just another oversimplified argument.
If you need to do mental gymnastics to feel OK about pirating then...idk find something better than this.
See comments below for more mental gymnastics
I buy water, I own it. It just passes Thur my body or shower and pipes. That's like saying you don't own your tires as they wear away. You can own consumables. I get your underlying point about theft is more then taking away something. You could be depriving someone of money they would have made. Same with copyright theft. Someone buys your product and copies it then sells it. They didn't steal from you directly but still caused harm. Piracy is a service issue, if things you buy on that service don't work people will stop using that service. I'm not going to download 12 game launchers to play the games I want, I'll stick with steam. Same way with tv/movies.
Is this when you steal someone's copyright and collect licensing fees posing as the legitimate copyright holder?
Or indirectly.
Maybe, maybe not. But no theft occurred.
I meant infringe on the copyright. I don't think what Disney and some others are doing is right with extending it but I do think the person that created the things should have some legal protection from it being copied for a bit.
Copyright infringement isn't theft, that's the main point. It's breaking a rule that the government created giving people a temporary (now extremely long term, but temporary) right to control the spread of ideas. Whether or not you approve of that law is beside the point. The point being, theft is as old as the ten commandments, if not older. Copyright is a new thing that's only a few centuries old.