You’re talking about a term I’ve yet to use in this thread.
I’m not really sure we should be basing our modern behavior on what Hammurabi thought was cool 3,500 years ago but that’s kind of a side tangent.
The point of the thread as I envisioned it wasn’t so much about the right/wrong aspects of piracy, but rather about the idea that because some IP is expensive or hard to find, that people feel entitled to pirate it. And I’m specifically not talking about abandonware.
That’s what I’m baffled by- how many people have the attitude that if it’s hard to get or expensive, that they’re somehow entitled to that sort of entertainment and should pirate it. And in the Reddit thread that inspired this, actually lionizing the pirates as modern day Robin Hoods as a result.
You did use the word “thief” one time … I checked. You also used a synonym for theft about 8,000 times (I didn’t check that word count), and the typical word for goods that were obtained via theft about 4,000 times. You are also not the only person posting in this thread.
Of course they do. If you were poor and you wanted to go to a club with a $50 cover, you could just tell yourself “I’m a poor schlub who doesn’t deserve to go to this fun club” or you could take up your buddy’s offer of letting you in the back door, since he’s one of the bouncers.
Is this a violation of the club owner’s right to charge a cover? Yes, it is. Do I care? No, I don’t.
This is the way of the world. Everyone’s looking for a little angle to make their lives better. Sometimes those angles violate the law, like when I want to get home earlier from work so I drive 60 in a 55 zone. That’s illegal, you say? It sure is, and I hope I don’t get caught, but I’m a rebel, and I’m doing it anyway.
As long as those violations stay in the minimal harm zone, it’s just part of the natural interplay between parties. I’d be more surprised if people universally condemned pirates, it’s just not how we roll.
Indeed I have said “stolen”, a less legalistic term that I’ve explained several times to be commonly used and understood in contexts even if there isn’t a missing physical item involved. Unlike “theft” which just results in weak & tiresome “Can it really be theft if the original is there?” pedantry. And apparently appeals to Hammurabi about why stealing people’s work ain’t no thing.
Throwing one cigarette butt on the ground causes almost no harm. Most people wouldn’t even notice a single cigarette butt, so it’s not a big deal. Therefore, it’s not immoral to throw a cigarette butt on the ground.
But it looks like the real meat of your argument is just the same old prescriptivist/descriptivist slap fight. Two hundred years ago, the concept of “stealing” digital content didn’t even exist, therefore, “stealing” can never be used to describe taking digital content that you didn’t pay for.
Sorry, that’s not a legal or moral argument, that’s a grammar argument. And a poor one.
No, at least I’m not intending it to be. My point is that societies throughout history have made theft/stealing illegal because of the harm caused to the victim, not the benefits gained by the perpetrator. The punishment isn’t based on how much the thief benefitted, but on how much the victim lost.
IP violations are different, I even highlighted that word in the part you quoted. That doesn’t make them irrelevant, or moral acts, they are just different. Like with your cigarette butt, throwing it on the ground is Littering, it isn’t Theft or Stealing or Environmental Assault and Battery, it’s Littering. It occupies it own little space of wrongdoings, separate from property crimes, even if it occurs on your property, even if the littering causes you to lose money.
I think IP owners feel that IP violations don’t get enough respect, and want to associate them with crimes that historically do get respect. I disagree, making your girlfriend a mixtape isn’t the same as giving her a necklace you stole from Kay Jewelers.
That’s 100% what this is:
You’re not arguing that they shouldn’t be considered crimes, or that doing it shouldn’t be considered immoral, you’re just arguing that we’re using the wrong word for it. That’s pure prescriptivism. It’s precisely the same logic that underlay the whole, “Don’t call gay marriage ‘marriage’” arguments we used to have, where you’d have posters saying that, of course gay people deserved all the rights and protections of marriage, but it should be called something different, because the word “marriage” means, “man and woman.”
This is borderline conspiratorial thinking. We call illicit copying of media “stealing” because it’s a natural out growth of the concept, in the sense of “taking something that you don’t have a right to.” It’s not even a particularly novel use of the word, as “stealing” has been used in conjunction with things like espionage and trade secrets for centuries.
And pocketing a pack of gum from the corner convenience store isn’t the same as embezzling millions from a pension fund, but that doesn’t make shoplifting “not stealing.”
You’re trying to alter perception of the crime by using the wrong word for it. I don’t know what word to use for that, but pointing it out isn’t prescriptivism.
Or it’s something IP owners did.
That’s because shoplifting is stealing, it’s basically textbook stealing.
Yeah, that’s still prescriptivism. “This word didn’t use to mean that, therefore, this word can never mean that. Words can never change or expand their definitions,” is exactly what “prescriptivism” means.
Also, an anti-piracy ad isn’t evidence that “IP holders” deliberately manipulated the language for their own nefarious ends.
And you’ve entirely missed the point of the shoplifting example. Of course it’s stealing. So is embezzlement. So is software piracy. They’re all different kinds of theft, but none of them are “not theft.”
It’s proof that they very much want piracy to be equated to stealing cars and pocketbooks.
You don’t often see ads to remind people not to steal cars and pocketbooks, because it’s just as bad as pirating a movie. Remember kids, you wouldn’t pirate a movie… so don’t rob banks or liquor stores.
I’d debate the definition of prescriptivism, but since definitions are apparently fluid and mean whatever the user wants them to mean, what’s the point? I could say prescriptivism is a type of African tree frog and what could you do to argue but out yourself as a tree frog?
I can’t tell whether you’re missing @Cheesesteak’s point or just disagreeing with him. According to the definition of “theft” or “stealing” that he is using, stealing item X from entity Y necessarily involves entity Y being deprived of item X. The monetary (or other) value of item X is irrelevant to this definition, but what is relevant is that item X is no longer in entity Y’s possession.
This accords with the first definition of “theft” in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary:
The whole debate is over the meaning of the word “theft” or “stealing” and what actions this word should encompass. And I can genuinely see both sides of this particular diisagreement.
So what? That has no bearing on whether that definition is right, nor on whether they’re responsible for coining that definition in the first place.
That’s because there aren’t a bunch of people out there making bizarre claims that hot wiring a car somehow doesn’t count as theft. If there were, you’d probably see ads pointing out that stealing cars is, in fact, still stealing.
Those ads would likely be paid for by automobile manufacturers, too.
“Descriptivism means you can just make up any definition of a word you want, and nobody can say you’re wrong!” is, amusingly, a classic prescriptivist argument.
Disagreeing with him. I get his point, it’s just not a good one.
That’s not the definition in the online version of M-W:
intransitive verb
1: to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice
…
transitive verb
1a: to take or appropriate without right or leave and with intent to keep or make use of wrongfully
Not that dictionary definitions mean all that much in this context, since they’re based on popular usage, not ideology, and the ship has long since sailed on the popular use of “stealing” in conjunction with digital media.
If you shoplift an apple from the grocery, and the store doesn’t sell all the apples they have and must compost them, is it still stealing? They’ll never notice, just like in the IP example.
The use of “piracy” to refer to stealing intellectual property goes back to at least 1706, an era when classic pirates were a real (though fading) thing. Presumably, it wasn’t in reference to anyone’s predilection for rum and sea shanties so acting as though connecting media piracy to stealing is some modern propaganda invention of software companies, Hollywood and the RIAA is a bit misguided.
The argument is about the definition of theft. Many of you seem to think it is the loss of something by someone that defines it. I say it is the gain of some thing/service without paying for it that defines a theft.
Endless digital copies vs limited physical copies means nothing. You got something for free without the “owner” being compensated. Theft.
when I lived there, the Bay Bridge was toll only entering SF, not leaving
IMO the whole arguments (excuses) griffin is making is a negative corollary to title–I’m “entitled” to take something without paying for it because I say so
Yeah, I know. It is not okay to steal even if it is easy and you cannot directly see the harm. I mean, sure, I would not blame a man stealing food for his family, but neither can I condone that.