About theft and piracy

Great Debates
1

[Disclaimer]
Piracy is illegal
I do not condone piracy in any of it’s forms nor encourage anyone to use illegaly obtained software, music, movies or any other kind of material subject to copyright laws.
[End disclaimer]

[Informal Disclaimer]
I have been hesitating about posting this since I am still a newbie on SDMB and do not consider myself worthy nor capable enough to post something in the prestigious GD section of the board. However, upon searching for any topics including the words piracy or pira* in them, I was greatly shocked to find out that, apparently, this issue has not been adressed before. So, i am going to follow Danton (De l’audace, encore de l’audace, toujours de l’audace !) and try to start an interesting discussion about this controversial subject.
[informal Disclaimer]

But enough empty talk.

There are several things that bother me:

1- Some people say that piracy is a form of theft.

My answer:

Here is a very clear definition of theft.

We all know that pirating does not deprive the rightful owner from his property. Therefore, the term theft cannot and should not be used to describe piracy.

2- Some creators of intellectual property (who shall be referred herein as CIP) who are in it for the profit claim that by pirating their products, you are inhibiting them from receiving their rightful remuneration, thus indirectly stealing money from them.

My answer:

It is my personal belief that anyone that finds your work useful or entertaining should financially encourage you to the extent of their possibilities. Failing to do so is indeed a harmful and shameful conduct which i abhorre deeply and find morally injustifiable. (Notice that i am not using the words “stealing” or “theft”.)

3- Some CIPs then proceed to assert that anyone that uses their products should pay for them.

How are the kids in Morocco going to buy videogames if there are no official retailers selling them? The same flea markets that introduce contraband consoles only sell pirate games. What harm are those kids doing to you by enjoying the latest Mario or Street Fighter with their friends?

Better yet. Take a flourishing company in that same country that is modern enough to use several computers in the office and finds a very useful 30 days trial shareware program. They cannot send money to the programmer because of the government policy on foreign currencies (for those not familiar with this: Morocco cannot use it’s own currency (Dirham or DH) to import or pay for services provided by other countries. It has to rely on it’s exportations to first world countries (France, Spain, U.S.A, Germany,etc) as well as the seasonal returning emigrants to provide it with “usable” money to pay for them. It makes it then very hard for a citizen to obtain the authorization to change his money for one of the cited currencies. If the owner of that company decides to “crack” that program and use it for free, how does that harm you?

I used Morocco in these examples because i am familiar with that country. however, you can replace Morocco by the name of another hundred thiird world countries and my statement will still be true.

Now let’s get REALLY controversial. If someone making minimum wage (here, in the U.S) cannot afford to use more than $50 per month to pay for music cds. If he buys his two favorite albums and download MP3s off all the other songs he “kinda” wants to listen to. How does that harm you?

My two cents are that you piracy should not be judged as a whole but in a case by case basis. I am sick and tired of hearing that pirates are criminals and of seeing how Anti-Piracy organizations like MPAA (Motion Pictures Association of America), RIAA (Record Industry Association of America) and others are picturing piracy as the darkest of evils and using it as an excuse to try and reduce our freedom of information rights to shreds. But that is a subject for another thread (which was already started i believe). For now, feel free to critize and comment on what I have said.

Gozu, the nervous newbie.

2

The theory is that if you created the song that was downloaded for free you will be robbed of all incentive to buy the albums the next month. However, in my experience that is bullshit. I make it practise to download at least three songs of an album before I buy it. If I like them, I buy the album and, eventually, others by the same artist. If I don’t like them, I delete the MP3’s because they suck and the album remains unbought. The practical upshot of this is that I don’t have to waste my hard earned cash buying garbage, which is always nice if you’re earning minimum wage (as I am) In other words I agree with every word of your OP.

3

I have a feeling that I need to use a slippery slope:
It’s my understanding that piracy doesn’t often limit itself to usage of a single copy of something that the individual would never be able to afford anyway(leaving aside the rights and wrongs of that), but that the next step is a very tempting “I’ll just run off a few extra copies to sell”.

4

Besides, arguably, the items in question are the property of the record companies and are theirs to protect as they see fit (in the same way as a person walking across my front lawn(if I had one) might do no perceptible damage, but it’s MY lawn and I’ll decide the terms upon which people cross it)

5

The problem is that when you are, say, downloading an MP3, you aren’t doing anything to the original copy. Your lawn is your lawn and you can’t really replace it but if your nextdoor neighbour lets everybody walk all over his lawn (which happens to be identical to yours) would you object to that?

6

Piracy is theft of a different kind. Remember, definitions can expand to meet new situations that weren’t encompassed by the old ones.

Basically, the problem with piracy is that you’re cheapening someone’s work (that is, their act of labor), not an end product itself. Consider: if you commission an automotive company to build you a one-of-a-kind car, then the physical taking of the car would be theft. The essence of the theft is that the comapny has put in however many hours of design, consultation, parts and labor to create the end product; hence, your theft of the product makes all that effort for naught. They’re entitled to reasonable compensation for their work.

The same idea applies with the arts, even though the item which is stolen is abstracted. Consider that a musician will spend hours composing music, crafting a story or message to go with it, consult with his musicians, spend hours practicing, all for a final, perfect copy which is duplicated in digital form in a studio somewhere. (For an idea of how laborious this can be, consider how much time and effort Enya puts into a single one of her songs. My understanding is she labors for hours over ever note that she includes in order to get it just right.)

Anyway, the musician is aware that his product is worth x amount of dollars on the open market, and the customer base has been willing to pay for it. It’s not that “end product” of his original copy in the studio he’s selling, but the time, labor, and effort put into producing it. He’s offering a service in the form of your entertainment, and he’d like compensation for it. Hence, piracy cheapens all that work he’s done by saying that all his hours of work on that single song are meaningless to you, because you’re entitled to it for free.

Yeah, he’s still got his original studio copy, but what was the point? His labor has been rendered valueless.

7

ResIpsaLoquitor:

Replace theft by read meat and piracy by chicken and you have:
chicken is a read meat of a different kind.

They both have lots in common (i.e: loss of something valuable or proteins) but they should be referred to by different names.

8

Okay, on the same subject (sort of), what do you think of abandonware?

Background: Abandonware is software (most frequently games, though a few utilities are shared under this auspice as well) that is unsupported and/or unsold by their publisher and has been in this state for at least five years. You can sometimes find abandonware in used software or book stores, on ebay, or in bargain bins. Frequently, however, especially for an extremely old or very obscure game, there’s no sign of it anywhere – anywhere, that is, except on abandonware sites, where it is available for free download.

The game company that made it is not making any money off it (frequently, the company has actually gone under or has been bought by someone else who has not seen fit to continue the product line). The game designers don’t make any money off it. Many game designers are kinda thrilled to know that their old games are still held in reverence. Any reputable abandonware site that knows a game has been rereleased (say, in a collection of blast-from-the-past games) will remove that game from their servers; you cannot download, for example, a copy of SimCity 2000 or Ultima 7 from a reputable abandonware site. What’s more, reputable abandonware sites do not charge. They accept donations for paying for their bandwidth, but they do not charge even a per-month connection fee.

Abandonware is, however, a breach of copyright law. Is abandonware wrong?

9

athene1765: I am familiar with abandonware (i sometimes feel nostalgic and want to play good ol’ games from the early 80’s) and even though your question is a rethorical one, this is my answer:

In the warm pink ideal world, it wouldn’t matter how old a creation is. As long as the creator(s) is/are still alive, the ethical thing to do would be to support them as best as you can. In this world, however, the teams that made those games (which are often several dozens/hundreds) have split up and you would have a hard time tracking them one by one, asking them for their account numbers and sending each of them a quarter or two. The good thing it doesn’t pose me a problem because the only abandonware games i re-play are those ones i owned and spent countless hours playing. So i consider myself morally clean in that particular aspect (now, if only i could stop killing old ladies and setting cats on fire…). So, as far as i’m concerned, Abandonware is not wrong.

10

[qoute]Gozu
1- Some people say that piracy is a form of theft.

We all know that pirating does not deprive the rightful owner from his property. Therefore, the term theft cannot and should not be used to describe piracy.
[/qoute]

Calling it theft, piracy, bootlegging, flim-flamming or whatever you want to call it is largely a matter of semantics. You are receiving the benefits of using their product without compensating them for their work. Other people who legitimately purchase the product must pay a higher price to subsidize your use of it.

[qoute]Gozu
2- Some creators of intellectual property (who shall be referred herein as CIP) who are in it for the profit claim that by pirating their products, you are inhibiting them from receiving their rightful remuneration, thus indirectly stealing money from them.

My answer:

It is my personal belief that anyone that finds your work useful or entertaining should financially encourage you to the extent of their possibilities. …
[qoute]

Sorry, but that’s not how the real world works. If you find the work useful, you pay the market price to use it. You can live without CDs, videogames or music.
[qoute]Gozu
3- Some CIPs then proceed to assert that anyone that uses their products should pay for them.

How are the kids in Morocco going to buy videogames if there are no official retailers selling them? The same flea markets that introduce contraband consoles only sell pirate games. What harm are those kids doing to you by enjoying the latest Mario or Street Fighter with their friends?

[/quote]

What gives some kid in Morocco the right to use a product they a) can’t afford or b) don’t have access to? Let them kick around a mellon in the street if they are bored.

To a dumb kid in Morocco, Microsoft may seem like an infinite money machine but that is not the case. A software company is not Unicef. They need to generate revenue in order to pay their workers and develop new products. From your perspective, you are just saving $50 bucks on a free copy of Street Fighter XII. But multiply that by 100,000 people or more doing the same thing and it amounts to significant $$$. That money come out of someones pocket and it’s usually the regular guy working the CD press, not the CEO of Sony.
[qoute]Gozu
Better yet. Take a flourishing company in that same country that is modern enough to use several computers in the office and finds a very useful 30 days trial shareware program. They cannot send money to the programmer because of the government policy on foreign currencies … …as well as the seasonal returning emigrants to provide it with “usable” money to pay for them. It makes it then very hard for a citizen to obtain the authorization to change his money for one of the cited currencies. If the owner of that company decides to “crack” that program and use it for free, how does that harm you?
[/qoute]

Once again…not the software companies problem. They only care about you using their product if you pay for it.
[qoute]Gozu
Now let’s get REALLY controversial. If someone making minimum wage (here, in the U.S) cannot afford to use more than $50 per month to pay for music cds. If he buys his two favorite albums and download MP3s off all the other songs he “kinda” wants to listen to. How does that harm you?
[/qoute]

What controversy? By your logic, the Porsche company should give me a free car because I can’t afford to buy one. What harm does it do them? They’re just a big company and can always make more.

And I am willing to bet there are a lot of people who download a lot of songs they “kinda want to listen to”, burn them onto a $0.25 CD-R and never purchase the CD.
[qoute]Gozu
…I am sick and tired of hearing that pirates are criminals and of seeing how Anti-Piracy organizations like MPAA (Motion Pictures Association of America), RIAA (Record Industry Association of America) and others are picturing piracy as the darkest of evils …
[/QUOTE]

As I already pointed out, record and movie companies make significant investments to produce, market and sell their products. When you make a bootleg copy, you decrease their revenue. If you decrease it enough, they will either cut costs and produce lower quality work or decide altogether that it is no longer a profitable business. In the world relevant to them, pirates are the darkest of evils. How would you feel about someone taking money out of your pocket?

You offer no argument in favor of pirating software other than “I want it but I can’t afford to buy it”. That is hardly a legitimate reason, especially for something that is not essential to life.

11

[qoute]Gozu
1- Some people say that piracy is a form of theft.

We all know that pirating does not deprive the rightful owner from his property. Therefore, the term theft cannot and should not be used to describe piracy.
[/qoute]

Calling it theft, piracy, bootlegging, flim-flamming or whatever you want to call it is largely a matter of semantics. You are receiving the benefits of using their product without compensating them for their work. Other people who legitimately purchase the product must pay a higher price to subsidize your use of it.

[qoute]Gozu
2- Some creators of intellectual property (who shall be referred herein as CIP) who are in it for the profit claim that by pirating their products, you are inhibiting them from receiving their rightful remuneration, thus indirectly stealing money from them.

My answer:

It is my personal belief that anyone that finds your work useful or entertaining should financially encourage you to the extent of their possibilities. …
[/qoute]

Sorry, but that’s not how the real world works. If you find the work useful, you pay the market price to use it. You can live without CDs, videogames or music.
[qoute]Gozu
3- Some CIPs then proceed to assert that anyone that uses their products should pay for them.

How are the kids in Morocco going to buy videogames if there are no official retailers selling them? The same flea markets that introduce contraband consoles only sell pirate games. What harm are those kids doing to you by enjoying the latest Mario or Street Fighter with their friends?

[/quote]

What gives some kid in Morocco the right to use a product they a) can’t afford or b) don’t have access to? Let them kick around a mellon in the street if they are bored.

To a dumb kid in Morocco, Microsoft may seem like an infinite money machine but that is not the case. A software company is not Unicef. They need to generate revenue in order to pay their workers and develop new products. From your perspective, you are just saving $50 bucks on a free copy of Street Fighter XII. But multiply that by 100,000 people or more doing the same thing and it amounts to significant $$$. That money come out of someones pocket and it’s usually the regular guy working the CD press, not the CEO of Sony.
[qoute]Gozu
Better yet. Take a flourishing company in that same country that is modern enough to use several computers in the office and finds a very useful 30 days trial shareware program. They cannot send money to the programmer because of the government policy on foreign currencies … …as well as the seasonal returning emigrants to provide it with “usable” money to pay for them. It makes it then very hard for a citizen to obtain the authorization to change his money for one of the cited currencies. If the owner of that company decides to “crack” that program and use it for free, how does that harm you?
[/qoute]

Once again…not the software companies problem. They only care about you using their product if you pay for it.
[qoute]Gozu
Now let’s get REALLY controversial. If someone making minimum wage (here, in the U.S) cannot afford to use more than $50 per month to pay for music cds. If he buys his two favorite albums and download MP3s off all the other songs he “kinda” wants to listen to. How does that harm you?
[/qoute]

What controversy? By your logic, the Porsche company should give me a free car because I can’t afford to buy one. What harm does it do them? They’re just a big company and can always make more.

And I am willing to bet there are a lot of people who download a lot of songs they “kinda want to listen to”, burn them onto a $0.25 CD-R and never purchase the CD.
[qoute]Gozu
…I am sick and tired of hearing that pirates are criminals and of seeing how Anti-Piracy organizations like MPAA (Motion Pictures Association of America), RIAA (Record Industry Association of America) and others are picturing piracy as the darkest of evils …
[/QUOTE]

As I already pointed out, record and movie companies make significant investments to produce, market and sell their products. When you make a bootleg copy, you decrease their revenue. If you decrease it enough, they will either cut costs and produce lower quality work or decide altogether that it is no longer a profitable business. In the world relevant to them, pirates are the darkest of evils. How would you feel about someone taking money out of your pocket?

You offer no argument in favor of pirating software other than “I want it but I can’t afford to buy it”. That is hardly a legitimate reason, especially for something that is not essential to life.

12

This is an attractive, but wrong, justification. Many, many moons ago I used to pirate game software like crazy. Just for myself, not for profit. My justification, so that I could still feel good about myself, was that I was a teacher and I was being payed crap wages. My logic was that I DESERVED this software FOR FREE because I was doing such a noble career (even though it payed crap).

Be aware that almost everyone that does wrong has a reason for it that justifies it for them. Almost everyone will not think of themselves as someone immoral even though they are committing immoral acts. So, having a justification doesn’t mean you are not being immoral.

13

What gives some kid in Morocco the right to use a product they a) can’t afford or b) don’t have access to? Let them kick around a mellon in the street if they are bored.

It hurts me to hear that. However, this is your opinion and i respect it. Other people might feel different.(I hope)

To a dumb kid in Morocco, Microsoft may seem like an infinite money machine but that is not the case. A software company is not Unicef. They need to generate revenue in order to pay their workers and develop new products. From your perspective, you are just saving $50 bucks on a free copy of Street Fighter XII. But multiply that by 100,000 people or more doing the same thing and it amounts to significant $$$. That money come out of someones pocket and it’s usually the regular guy working the CD press, not the CEO of Sony.

This does not follow your previous statement. i was clearly talking about products that COULD NOT be aquired otherwise by the “dumb kids in Morocco”. I might agree if you replace that by "dumb kids in [insert your favorite first world country here]"
[qoute]Gozu
Better yet. Take a flourishing company in that same country that is modern enough to use several computers in the office and finds a very useful 30 days trial shareware program. They cannot send money to the programmer because of the government policy on foreign currencies … …as well as the seasonal returning emigrants to provide it with “usable” money to pay for them. It makes it then very hard for a citizen to obtain the authorization to change his money for one of the cited currencies. If the owner of that company decides to “crack” that program and use it for free, how does that harm you?
[/qoute]

Once again…not the software companies problem. They only care about you using their product if you pay for it.

Agreed. Not their problem. But if we start with that attitude, anyone could say that it’s not his problem if all the programmers get fired. This gets us nowhere.

[qoute]Gozu
Now let’s get REALLY controversial. If someone making minimum wage (here, in the U.S) cannot afford to use more than $50 per month to pay for music cds. If he buys his two favorite albums and download MP3s off all the other songs he “kinda” wants to listen to. How does that harm you?
[/qoute]

What controversy? By your logic, the Porsche company should give me a free car because I can’t afford to buy one. What harm does it do them? They’re just a big company and can always make more.

By my logic, you should be able to BUILD YOURSELF a free Porsche following a bootlegged “make your own porsche in 30 minutes!!!” manual if you don’t have the money to buy one nor any realistic hope to save enough money to buy one before all the porsches get obsolete. I think this is a very bad example anyways.

And I am willing to bet there are a lot of people who download a lot of songs they “kinda want to listen to”, burn them onto a $0.25 CD-R and never purchase the CD.

**There, you make a very good point…that Gomez has already adressed.**I’d like to see you commenting on what he said.

[qoute]Gozu
…I am sick and tired of hearing that pirates are criminals and of seeing how Anti-Piracy organizations like MPAA (Motion Pictures Association of America), RIAA (Record Industry Association of America) and others are picturing piracy as the darkest of evils …
[/QUOTE]

As I already pointed out, record and movie companies make significant investments to produce, market and sell their products. When you make a bootleg copy, you decrease their revenue. If you decrease it enough, they will either cut costs and produce lower quality work or decide altogether that it is no longer a profitable business. In the world relevant to them, pirates are the darkest of evils. How would you feel about someone taking money out of your pocket?

You offer no argument in favor of pirating software other than “I want it but I can’t afford to buy it”. That is hardly a legitimate reason, especially for something that is not essential to life.

First off, i wasn’t only adressing software (which is why i used the term CIP). Second, i would feel bad if someone took money out of my pocket. Third, i said that piracy should be adressed case by case and that is why i don’t want it all to be painted in the same black colors.
**
[/QUOTE]

**I fear i am not as good at quoting/countering as you are. maybe someone else can give it a shot.

Ah, and thank you for putting a little heat in this thread. I will be looking forward to more of your posts :slight_smile: I especially want to know what you have to say about abandonware**

14

how about rich, successful going concerns which refuse to sell copies of their (copyrighted) works?

Disney: Song of the South (and an uncut Fantasia)

AOL et. al.: 100’s of the old Looney Tunes/Merry Melodies.

Are they morally defensible to withhold these products? (I know the law US))

Is piracy defensible under these conditions?

15

I have to agree with Gozu here, technicality would dictate that piracy is not stealing. Now morally that’s a different story, and think that’s more of what you are referring to. I mean honestly, I would probably still be using windows 95 if I hadn’t stepped up with pirated OS’s overtime. Did Microsoft lose any money because of that? No. On the whole, IMO, companies don’t lose even 10% of the revenue they claim from piracy. The only reason some games are even played is because of piracy. Can you imagine the state of computer games if everybody actually bought every single game and nobody pirated? A lot less games would be played because people are too cheap to buy everything. Game designers would have to become alot more creative in their games and in the marketing. Now this isn’t an excuse by any means, but it does help us rationalize our belief that companies aren’t as bad off as they seem. The only way for piracy to be considered stealing is if the definiton is re-written. You brought up music- now due to the lower cost of music CD’s one could argue that pirating these is stealing, because more than likely if you liked the music you would have bought it, and most people can afford it. But I still say that of all the music I pirate, I would probably have only paid for maybe 10-15% of it, unlike games and software which is more like 2-5%. Movies are the same way. Of all the movies I’ve downloaded, I probably would have only gone to the theater a few times. And there were still a couple I did go see, Fast and the Furious and AP-Goldmember. I even bought the Fast and the furious DVD. So people who pirate still do buy things, and more than likely the things they buy are the only things they were ever going to buy.

Here’s a new twist to the arguement- is downloading really illegal? Isn’t the only illegal aspect of this the copying and distribution? You’re not doing either of those. I don’t think the “accepting stolen goods” law applies to intellectual property. What does everyone think about that?

16

Of course not; it’s HIS property, not mine, you can’t copy lawns in the same way as you can copy software (so perhaps the analogy is flawed - what a surprise); how about those little signs in art galleries that tell us we must not photograph the paintings; should we respect them?

17

I think you’re confusing something here. Piracy isn’t the ‘stealing’ of the cd/game whatever, but stealing the legitimate fruits of some one else’s labor. and stealing it is indeed.

When you ‘buy’ the game, you’ve bought a copy of the original, the ‘owner’ still has that original etc. however, you’ve compensated the owner for their labor/product.
and while msmith’s coding seemed to have gotten tweeked, he’s absolutely correct in his assertion that justification of the theft because “I really want it but can’t afford to buy it legitimately” is no real justification at all.

I really want that pony by the way.

18

Wow, talk about overlooking the obvious; thanks wring; the owner retains the original copy when a legitimate purchase is made (this is precisely true in the case of online purchase and download); if piracy isn’t stealing, then purchasing isn’t buying for the same reasons.

19

This is an interesting discussion, and I’d like to add something to it:

My Official Position:

Piracy is bad, and should be illegal. All those “controversial” execptions you made, Gozu, should be illegal. A company should be able to protect its intellectual property, and should be compensated by each person who benefits from the use of that property.

My Unoffical Position:

Piracy should be one of those things that is only sometimes enforced, because it’s not always a black-and-white situation. Downloading a pirated PC game because I’m too cheap to buy it? Bad. Downloading an MP3 for a song I don’t own, because after spending 3 years searching for it, I can’t find it anywhere, and I only plan to use it personally? Not as bad. Taking the game I just bought and installing it on both my home PC and (gasp!) my laptop? Not bad at all. They’re both my computers, I’m still the only one who will benefit from it. By actively enforcing and rigorously thwarting these types of piracy, companies achieve the following:

  • Their customer base becomes thoroughly pissed at the inane copy-protection schemes that make their software crash, or refuse to allow their CD to play on their PC, or whatnot.

  • They spend an ass-load of money on lawyers and programmers coming up with copy-protection schemes, thus raising the price of their goods.

  • They intrude upon the property rights of their customers.

  • They keep customers from engaging in perfectly legal practices, such as downloading a copy of a song they already own in MP3 format.

  • They still spectacularly fail to prevent piracy, as pirates are a helluva lot more resourceful than those who create the copy-protection.

If companies would restrict their litigations to large-scale operations, and stop targeting companies like Napster, they would save us all a lot of headaches. Current schemes, like Microsoft’s plan to integrate DRM into Windows, such that media companies could browse your computer and delete or disable things they don’t want you to have, are ridiculous, and are only going to breed more pirates.

I recognize that it’s the right of these companies to behave as stupidly as they please, but they should really look into altering their business models to take current technology into account, rather than charging obscene prices for their products and engaging in draconian anti-piracy policies.
Jeff

20

Just to confuse the issue further:
I pirated a book the other day. Barns and Noble has those neat comfy chairs, and I had a free day, mad reading skillz, and a dearth of cash. I walked in, plucked my book of choice (The Dragon Society, Lawrence Watt-Evans) from the shelves, sat down, and read it. Did I “steal” the rights to the book?