I'm with you, up until here. If I buy some content (e-book, movie, TV show, etc.), and then DRM malfunctions or is senselessly restrictive (client doesn't exist for some platform, etc.), I feel it is justifiable to "pirate" the content which I paid for. Particularly in the case of malfunctioning DRM (which is unfortunately common for PC games these days), it is the provider who failed to hold up their end of the bargain (whatever their EULA may say).

But of all the things studios do, deciding where to sell or not sell content is something that they actually have every right to do. We are entitled to content we paid for, but are not entitled to content just because it exists. If HBO doesn't want to release Game of Thrones during the season to Amazon, etc. because they want people to watch it on their network, what right do I have to steal it because I don't want to pay for cable?

In my whole life pirate content was present, sometimes more, sometimes less.

I live in a third world country, with poor access to outside culture, and the culture present here is not that interesting to me (example: the most popular music genres, bands and groups all talk about extremely pornographic sex, and has heavy percussion emphasis, with little or no melody, the biggest national party is focused on that same music genres and debauchery).

When I was a kid, the ONLY way to get computer stuff, was pirate it, sometimes some shareware software was for sale for about 10 USD (yep, I paid 10 USD on a SHAREWARE copy of Wolf 3D, having only the first episode), even to get pirated stuff sometimes was extremely hard (to get a copy of Doom 1 and 2, my dad made some engineering services do Kia motors, and agreed to give them a discount if their CEO, that was a known Doom player, gave us a copy, the guy gave my dad a box with about 20 floppies or something).

So, just because I was born here, I have no right to have foreign culture? Because I was born here, I am supposed to settle for a culture about percussion music, debauched promiscuous sex and soccer?

I have no right to coding books? Research papers? European music of all genres (from french eletronica to austrian classical)? I can't see excellent TV series from UK (like Sherlock) and instead must settle for local TV programs with melodramatic plots that praise villains that are adulterous swindlers and con artists?

I seriously don't understand people that think that culture, knowledge and information is not a right, that think that poor people, or people from distant places must resign themselves to remain ignorant.

To play the devil's advocate. Why not though? The "because it's illegal" I can understand.

But if one's to argue it's also "immoral", then this pressuposses a whole complicated ethics based on a human invention like "copyright", which I'm not sure why people need to respect.

The sad fact is that we don't live in such a world, so some form of compensation for authors is necessary, if you want them to keep doing what they are doing. Copyright isn't the only model, but I don't see any practical way to pivot back to a patronage model, especially for content which isn't considered high art. So, I don't think it is fair that one should be paid for making cars, but not be paid for making software, since both consume money to produce. The fact that software doesn't consume (much) money to produce more units after one is produced means that the model of compensation may be different, but I don't think it means there should be no compensation at all. It is easy to go too far in the other direction (e.g. the behavior of record companies and movie studios, who exploit the real authors), but I don't think that invalidates the concept entirely.

So no more big bugdet commercial BS endlessly re-run and re-sold on DVDs and such. Art would be created by people really passionate for it. From my point of view, that would be progress. Of course some people would lament not having Transformers 3 -- but then again, some people would lament anything and everything, including bad things. The key question is: is it better in aggregate?

Now, for other stuff, like software, that might indeed be an issue. I'm assuming here that "pro" software is a good thing (more features, higher quality), where "pro art" is a bad thing (more commercialized crap).

For example, the direction Patreon and Kickstarter are taking the indie media scene is very encouraging, but these little fish would be even more screwed if copyright completely evaporated.

It's possible to be passionate about your craft and spend money on it and want to make money at it. I would be willing to bet that most of the people who worked on Transformers 3 were actually quite passionate. Then again, so are Uwe Boll and Stephanie Meyer. Mainstream familiarity breeds contempt in hispters and elitists but it's not necessarily the case that there is an inverse relationship between the scale of distribution and artistic quality. You can find good, high budget commercial fare as well as plenty of garbage on the indie side of any creative industry.

Making an exemption for software development doesn't really make sense either. Surely, if artists need to starve for the sake of their work then programmers do as well?

In a world where they hadn't been created, I would be strictly worse off. Even if I could enjoy low-budget "artsy" movies.

Probably in Hungarian without subtitles, for maximum authenticity.

That's how art happens even now.

I suspect much pirating is rooted in entitlement, and the moralizing comes after.

Sometimes no, it's not.

Just this morning I was talking with TeMPOraL and we were recalling how the software market looked like in Poland in the nineties (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10397694). My "walk down to the store" then would have to be to another country, a thousand kilometers or so; through two or three national borders. It's not that I didn't want to pay with what little money I had, it's just that there was no one who wanted to take my money (besides "pirates", of course).

This is the context for my statement above. Of course, it's rarely that bad nowadays, but it still happens. And how hard getting the content has to be for you to consider it not available? There being physically not one "legal" copy of Windows in the entire country (been there)? Is it enough for the nearest place offering content to be a thousand kilometers away? 500km? 200km? (and no, nobody wanted to even ship it via snail mail, because uncertain laws and such).

As for entitlement... well, that's trickier and I don't want to go there. I can only say that both sides of this argument have interesting and convincing arguments.

That doesn't seem quite right to me.

Does the content creator (since there would be no 'owner' without copyright) have any say over the use or distribution? I think of all those rock stars that have had politicians misappropriate their songs and then asked them to stop using them over the years. I wonder what that felt like, you wrote this hit song that was powerful and evoked emotion and then someone you are ideologically opposed to tried to use it for their purpose.

You've got the "rights" the wrong way around - it's not that people have the right to see the boudoir photos, it's that people have the right to copy photos they own, and the husband/wife are not allowed to infringe on that right.

Basically, it's not "thou shalt not kill", rather than "right to life", although people implicitly do have the right to copy.

The exception being, obviously, copyright - which is a temporary state-sanctioned monopoly on the right to copy your works (in other words, you're temporarily the sole holder of the copy right), for the sake of producing more artistic works for the general public.

Sorry, what? We absolutely do, if we're willing to pay. The point of copyright is to provide a monetary incentive for authors/makers of works to go make their works, via a temporary state-sanctioned monopoly. If they then take their state-sanctioned monopoly and refuse to sell to certain locations...

Well, that's not what the state granted their monopoly for. They have no right to do that.

Again: The purpose of copyright is generating more artistic works, and if they aren't interested in extracting profits via selling their works in a specific country, then what's the point of restricting the right to copy the work in that country in the first place?

It violates the point of copyright, not to mention anti-trust laws.

If the price is too high I'll wait until it comes down and not pirate it (see: waiting for a game to be cheaper during a Steam sale).

If the company tries to control how I consume the content in a way that is illogical or very inconvenient, I'll get it by other means or just avoid it altogether. Examples:

1. Rick and Morty is not on Netflix, so I'll watch it on Popcorn Time.

2. Rockstar games have horrendous DRM attached, even with Steam, so I just avoid them altogether. I purchased the GTA bundle and GTA IV simply does not work due to DRM. EA and Ubisoft are the same in this boat for me.

3. Apple requires the use of Safari to view their live streams, for no valid technical reason. So, I don't listen or pay attention to anything during their keynotes. At the office, headphones go on. From my perspective, they don't want me as a customer anyway, so there's no point in giving them any mindshare.

So you pay Netflix, but Netflix didn't pay Comedy Central for Rick and Morty. So why does Comedy Central get penalized because they didn't make a deal with a content provider you consider convenient? Also, in this particular case, you can watch it for free (legally) here[1] (please do, it would be a shame for such a good show to get cancelled because they think nobody is watching).

> 2. Rockstar games have horrendous DRM attached, even with Steam, so I just avoid them altogether. I purchased the GTA bundle and GTA IV simply does not work due to DRM. EA and Ubisoft are the same in this boat for me.

I feel your pain. However, my approach is to pay for the games, and then download cracks when the DRM (inevitably) malfunctions. It is some small inconvenience, but I think it is far more fair than paying nothing at all. Also, going that route ensures that game companies will (1) make the DRM even worse in a vain attempt to make it "uncrackable" (2) give up on PC games that aren't entirely online based. Though I think it may be too late already.

[1]: http://www.adultswim.com/videos/rick-and-morty/

Secondarily, thank you for pasting that link. I didn't realize it was available to watch for free directly. I'll watch the ones that are open to me there then.

Look at the big picture. We live in a society full of corruption and greed; people are naturally going to "steal" from the big greedy corporations who constantly use their advantage to turn the screws and make society pay for their faulty business plans.

Take the Sherlock TV series for example: who wants to wait for two years for a new season, and then an additional two months for it to arrive in your particular country? In Finland the series is shown on a state-funded channel who don't even get any money from you watching the show on their channel.

This is what 'content producers' are competing against. You may not like it, but that's reality.

Did the cable company lie to you and say that their contract covered indefinite access to their content after termination of their service? Because if they did, you probably have some serious grounds for a lawsuit. If not, how would you feel if your employer decided he paid you for years, so he is justified in just stopping.

Ah, but I forgot! You're dealing with a corporation, which means that you can m̶o̶r̶a̶l̶i̶z̶e̶ justify doing anything when they are involved. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Secondly, I don't care about your moral code or your justifications, I care about mine - but I guarantee you that you personally don't live by the letter of the law or every contract you've ever signed. So, why should anyone listen to you? There are no absolutes and your laws and contracts are basically for people who wish follow them, but they're not for me because I don't live in a fantasy world where everything is perfect and everybody follows the rules.

Then you should've just said this from the start instead of trying to justify it by past spending.

And it's continued spending, not past spending...and my justification also reflects on the actions of my adversaries.

In a civilized society, respect for the law must trump our endless appetite for convenient entertainment. There are causes that merit civil disobedience, but this isn't one of them. If we can't consume some piece of entertainment legally, then we should just pass on it; there's always something else we can enjoy instead.

There's an exceptionally strong argument for a simple access fee or tax (built into broadband service provision or income tax, preferably scaled to wealth), for which you have all-you-can-eat access to content, with authors paid based on a pro-rated basis of usage of their works, based on some cost-of-production scale (algorithmic computer-generated music really shouldn't be rewarded on the same basis as high-calibre investigative journalism or technical research). Possibly even taking the concept of payment for work out of the equation and providing some number of professional slots rewarded on a sliding scale based on measures of talent or quality. After all, what matters in producing considerable content is occupational stability in doing so. Periodic (annual? More or less frequent?) assessments could be made to compensation, number of openings, etc. Yes, it's complex, but then, information goods are too.

Oh, and that argument's compelling enough for Amazon to consider it. Don't buy their DRM'd crap myself, but those I know are being offered $10/mo all-you-can-eat access. O'Reilly's Safari service has had a similar offering for years (though at a different price-point as I recall).

Seems a good idea whose time may well come.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3p0bp6/richard...

Respect for the law because is a rot that must be removed from society. Respecting a law just because it exists is to shackle our morals and common sense to what those in charge of the law dictate.

>There are causes that merit civil disobedience, but this isn't one of them.

The notion of civil disobedience, especially that of 'to do it, you must break the law and willingly submit yourself to punishment' is another rot. As for actual disobedience, the privatization of our collective culture to an extent that far surpasses rewarding primary contributors is a cause for general disobedience.

Also to note, your paying for movie ticket actually has no end effect because at the end of the day ever movie is a financial disaster. At least for mainstream Hollywood.

You assume all pirating is for entertainment. In a civilized society - should the poor not have access to expensive research papers, books, and the right to self-education through these materials? Are those things that are reserved only for those who can afford it? Is that really a civilized society? One that ignores the poor in an every-increasing demand for individual wealth rather than communal wealth?

There is a coffee shop where I live where you can "purchase" a coffee. The payment is whatever you feel the coffee is worth. Most people will pay $4-6 like any other coffee shop. Some people will feel generous or can afford to pay more. It's popular among the homeless and poor, because they can enjoy coffee and if they can only afford to give $0.50 they give $0.50, if they can't afford giving anything - the coffee is free.

I think that's more civilized than denying the poor the ability to enjoy coffee simply because they aren't in a position to pay for it. I argue this would only fail in uncivilized places where everyone is abusive of the generosity and the affluent and wealthy are not generous with their wealth causing the coffee shop to quickly go out of business.

But this depends on how "civilized" is to be defined.

Why?

The law exists, among other reasons, to save us the N! negotiation of appropriate barriers. In that way, taking some aliquot of entertainment is not different from sleeping on your porch. Or in your living room.

Slavish adherence to the law regardless of its nuance is not noble, it does not contribute to some greater whole, it is mere obedience, nothing more.

"Speed Limit 65" on major highways is a law too, and one that has roughly as much respect among the people as copyright law. And we're a more efficient society for ignoring it.

Actually walking out of a store with a physical copy of a book (or a CD or a movie) is something most people would agree is theft, but making a digital copy of the same book or CD or movie without paying for it is... something else. By this point anyone on HN can enumerate the salient differences, which all revolve around digital copies having zero marginal cost.

The problem is that we too often ignore the salient similarities. The reason you want this particular book or CD or movie has nothing to do with the marginal cost of that particular copy. The bulk of the value always lay in the creative work; in digital media, all of the value lies in the creative work. If I want to sell you a novel and you don't like the price I've set, you'd never think that justifies walking out of the store without paying for a physical copy. Why does it justify you making a digital copy without paying for it?

DRM is a terrible "solution" to this problem, but I think its worst feature may be that its existence obscures the actual value of creative works by focusing attention back on the medium. My hypothetical novel's value, or lack thereof, ultimately has nothing to do with whether it's a trade paperback or an EPUB file. The principle of "you give me money in exchange for my work" remains the same even if my work is not fixed in a physical, tangible form.

If we're talking about justification rather than law, the question can easily be turned around to become "What gives you the right to prevent me from making a digital copy?" Because you made the thing? More likely than not, I'll pay you if your work is any good.

Content producers seem to want to make the jump from physical to digital to gain its benefits without their customers realizing those same benefits, such as the ability to try before buying, or format shifting, etc. They treat this relationship as inherently adversarial in nature, and that's even before DRM gets added to the mix.

If your work is good, I will pay you. You lost the ability to control whether that happens before or after I've sampled the work, and you can thank decades of bad business practices for the justification for that.

Willfully choosing to ignore the speed limit has no impact on the rest of the law - that law is ignored because it is widely seen to be broken, inefficient, and nothing more than a vehicle for unjust profit.

Coincidentally, the same negative descriptors apply to copyright in 2015.

This is not D&D, we do not have character alignments. I am not giving up some imaginary karma and slighting the deity/concept of Justice and Good Order by choosing to ignore a subset of non-beneficial laws.

The question is - how can you fight it? If the plebes could get laws made in their interest, they would. But they can't, so some of them do the next best thing - break the law. And I don't see anything wrong with that. Might makes right is the ultimate rule here. If nobody can stop you from doing what you want, then it's OK. That's just how the world works.

http://extent-of-regulation.dhwritings.com/

If Amazon cares enough to try to shut down the decryption with better technology, I'll stop buying Kindle books and I guess we'll both be a little bit poorer for it. That's their call though. I'll worry about it when I have to.

I don't generally pirate things. I can't say I never do, but it's very rare, and I don't believe I'm in the right for doing so. But with ebooks, I'm paying Amazon for the book, and while I recognize the truth is that content creators and publishers have the right control distribution of their work, in practice I'm only willing to recognize those rights when they're not wholly unreasonable. HBO wanting me to pay for Game of Thrones is reasonable. Wanting to charge me as a commercial broadcaster if I have a watch party at my house isn't, and I feel like my treatment of ebooks is morally fine. It's an arbitrary line, I recognize, but it's one I'm currently fine with.

In comparison, The Martian was only $2 for the Kindle version because that guy originally posted his book for only a dollar (or something), and I bought it immediately and told everyone I knew about how cheap it was (the book was good enough I'd have been happy to have paid $10 for it, though).

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18ama...

When it stops being possible people won't buy kindles.

As gog.com and CD Projekt RED shown - it's perfectly possible to make a living selling non-DRMed games (when their servers failed last tuesday people still bought the Witcher 3 expansion in gog, and then downloaded it from torrents), so I don't see how it's impossible to do with ebooks.

Right, except you don't have the right to do that. You have no carte blanche entitlement to access media or entertainment. If the executives at HBO figure that, financially speaking, it's in their best interest to keep new Game of Thrones episodes accessible to cable customers only, you have the right to not buy it and be frustrated at that and protest it until eventually enough people protest for HBO to budge.

What you don't have the right to do is then to circumvent the legal and technological system set up for you to purchase Game of Thrones and access it for free, which, yes, is fucking theft. I can hear the scoffing through TCP/IP.

And you're not just harming the company, you're not just harming the already rich suits at HBO. This is a classic case of tragedy of the commons. People figure getting their music for free is a more rational individual choice than paying $16 for a CD. Everyone then makes the decision to get their media for free. Who cares about those stupid record labels, anyways?

Suddenly, smaller markets around the world have their industry gutted by piracy, smaller labels have to shut down, bigger labels have to fire hundreds of less successful artists that they used to be able to support from the money they made on the more successful artists, the more successful artists have to stop relying on royalties from album sales and have to whore themselves out doing nonstop touring year-round for money. Thank God it's physically impossible to "pirate" concert tickets.

I know we're going on a tangent here, but people often falsely conflate open-source access to information and piracy into this one big, happy revolution against the evil gatekeepers and their evil transactions that involve my money. No. Piracy is just fucking theft, period.

Piracy is the correcting hand of the free market, where obtaining things for free is easier and less byzantine than by paid channels. Psychological research has proven time and time again that most people are willing to pay, but unwilling to have their personal rights trampled by draconian licensing and DRM.

Luckily your opinions, however misinformed, are irrelevant because anyone who understands this will never give up the fight. We understand how international trade deals and copyright law are being used offensively against the public, and we will not relinquish control over the devices we've rightfully purchased.

I'd suggest you get used to it. We're here to stay.

No, the (ethical) correcting hand of the free market is not buying things, not deciding you are entitled to any entertainment content anyone produces.

> Luckily your opinions, however misinformed, are irrelevant because anyone who understands this will never give up the fight. We understand how international trade deals and copyright law are being used offensively against the public, and we will not relinquish control over the devices we've rightfully purchased.

Yes, if you rightfully purchase something, then I'll agree you have every right to skirt DRM if it is not letting you use what you purchased. But just stealing it outright is exactly how we've ended up with things like TPP and the DMCA, or Hollywood's relatively recent trend of spit-firing bad movies so they'll at least make something in the box office.

No one (intelligent) is trying to make a moral argument for 'piracy' or media entitlement, but rather saying that there do exist circumstances where the letter of the law deserves to be ignored as it runs contradictory to the spirit.

The spirit of copyright law is to ensure rights-holders are fairly compensated, and the unfortunate confluence of many complex factors has precluded this.

Rights-holders are understandably scared of technology's ability to level the playing field (by increasing access and decreasing their exclusivity advantage), and thus far most have chosen the historically-impotent strategy of hardline enforcement over adapting services and creating new revenue streams. What bothers me is that they hold the artists out to the public and say "look at this poor starving fella," meanwhile no one has any idea that their new streaming-media licensing agreement entitles artists to ~2-5% of the total earnings generated.

I'm particularly sensitive to this issue because I work in ad-tech. People (myself ironically included) love ad blockers, and I'd argue it's for good reason. Unless the implicit contract between those monetizing and those consuming is respected, everyone loses in the arms race that follows. In our industry it's been adapt-or-die (create products that don't hurt the user's experience), and that's the way it should be. Thankfully nobody is lobbying in congress to stipulate how you may use your eyeballs.

Hollywood and Telecom have historically received unprecedented favoritism in this country, and it's possible we're all on the verge of paying the price. It will only continue to encroach upon our individual rights as society becomes increasingly digital.

I don't think anyone is entitled to anything for free, but I'm a realist and a pragmatist. I will reverse engineer and circumvent the things people say I can't until the day I die :)

> No one (intelligent) is trying to make a moral argument for 'piracy' or media entitlement

Alas, I've seen quite a few people in this thread make just that argument, and the unfortunate part is that many seem to be quite intelligent.

> I don't think anyone is entitled to anything for free, but I'm a realist and a pragmatist. I will reverse engineer and circumvent the things people say I can't until the day I die :)

Amen!

Piracy, or copyright infringement, or whatever the fuck you want to call it, and theft have the same practical effect : you're accessing a consumable good without paying the requisite cost, your individual crime may not have a large effect on the ability of the seller to provide for that good, but, on the large scale, if everyone committed your crime, you would severely affect the seller's ability to both 1. provide for him/her/their-self and 2. provide that good to the people. So, for all intents and purposes, yes, piracy is theft in cause & effect, if not in literal, philosophical definition.

I said it in my first post. If paid channels are byzantine and draconian, don't pay. You still don't have a right to the content. Just don't buy it. That's "fight" enough. That's "protest" enough.

>[some extremely condescending and pretentious teenage bullshit about "not giving up the fight"]

No, buddy, you're not on some morally righteous journey to freedom. Ironically enough, the DRM, DMCA, and the Gestapo-ification of the MPAA and RIAA only exist because of people like you. The executives and middlemen (i.e.: cable networks, record labels, publishers) hate piracy because it severely harms their bottom line, the artists hate piracy because it harms their livelihood, the consumers hate piracy because it leads to annoying DRM and other counterpiracy measures that end up harming paying consumers most. The only people that are lifting their fists in the air with you are, bingo, other pirates.

If you are a programmer, security researcher, artist, or entrepreneur you can make a difference.

1. As an individual: if you understand the methods, contribute to open-source tools that allow individuals to exercise their rights. https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools (one example)

Artists: Use self-publishing platforms (gumroad, bandcamp, even spotify...) and self-incorporate. Discriminate against giving your business to companies that don't support open, sane protocols. Don't let them exert their power against the populace through backdoor trade deals.

Entrepreneurs: Create new content delivery and streaming platforms that force the transition to digital--rightsholders like to claim that piracy is responsible for their failed economics, though the truth is that they had an artificial market advantage of scarcity. User-generated content has bloomed with the advent of digital, and more consumer choice is a death knell to the traditional monopoly.

2. As a cause: support the EFF, and any politician looking to work with the FCC who understands this issue is deeper than "restricting content," and could undermine the rights of property and security of ownership. Do not trust anyone who does not comprehend the societal implications of critical infrastructure being "security through obscurity." http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comment/view?id=60001303221

The security of your laptop, the concept of personal ownership, and your right not to be digitally inspected at over 40 international borders is at stake.

* figure revised to more accurately reflect the reality of the american justice system.

"Consumable" would imply that the good is "Consumed". The traditional definition of consumption is that the good can't be consumed more than once. This definition has been altered in the digital age, but I think that's where the confusion arises.

A digital, infinitely copy-able good isn't really "consumed", as the copying doesn't actually reduce the original in any way, shape or form.

Perhaps "Observed" would be a better term?

That has the "same practical effect", yet the folks who like to moralize about copyright don't seem to have as much of an issue with that. (Though I'm sure the content industry would find a way to charge for this completely legitimate use if they could)

You still don't have a right to the content.

I place precisely zero value on your opinion on this matter because you lost most of this fight the moment the copy command was invented, and the idiocy behind the content industry lost the rest. This includes greatly exaggerated "losses", suing of computer-illiterate elderly people and network printers, perversion of the copyright system from something beneficial for the arts to a means of cultural control and profit above all else.

We're people, we can change the law however we see fit. I suggest it's time that we push this pendulum back in the other direction, and then snap it off.

Everyone should take note of the proper way to fight encroaching copyright law:

If you are a programmer, security researcher, artist, or entrepreneur you can make a difference.

1. As an individual: if you understand the methods, contribute to open-source tools that allow individuals to exercise their rights. https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools (one example)

Artists: Use self-publishing platforms (gumroad, bandcamp, even spotify...) and self-incorporate. Discriminate against giving your business to companies that don't support open, sane protocols. Don't let them exert their power against the populace through backdoor trade deals.

Entrepreneurs: Create new content delivery and streaming platforms that force the transition to digital--rightsholders like to claim that piracy is responsible for their failed economics, though the truth is that they had an artificial market advantage of scarcity. User-generated content has bloomed with the advent of digital, and more consumer choice is a death knell to the traditional monopoly.

2. As a cause: support the EFF, and any politician looking to work with the FCC who understands this issue is deeper than "restricting content," and could undermine the rights of property and security of ownership. Do not trust anyone who does not comprehend the societal implications of critical infrastructure being "security through obscurity." http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comment/view?id=60001303221

The security of your laptop, the concept of personal ownership, and your right not to be digitally inspected at over 40 international borders is at stake.

No, you don't get to redefine a word because you feel like it. "Piracy" is often wrong, but it is not theft (the owner is not deprived of the item).

Let's take George Bernard's famous quote: “If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.” According to your definition, one could not engage in theft of an idea, because one could never be deprived of an idea like with the taking of an apple.

However, let's look at the actual legal definition of theft: The actus reus (act) of theft is usually defined as an unauthorized taking, keeping or using of another's property which must be accompanied by a mens rea (mental state/intent) of dishonesty and/or the intent to permanently deprive the owner or the person with rightful possession of that property or its use.

You limited the definition of theft to only include when one's mental state intends to deprive someone. The actual definition is not limited though, but alternatively includes when the taking was done dishonestly. Therefore, if someone takes something not belonging to them, and does so dishonestly that in fact is theft. Since I foresee the definition of dishonesty being the next issue here, that has been defined in case law, but generally where the person intended to take property they did not have a legal right to take.

As a lawyer, I'm surprised you are not familiar with the Dowling case, which is where that definition comes from. It wasn't pulled out of GP's ass.

Lets try again, because while I used "idea" in the Bernard quote to demonstrate how non-physical can be taken without depriving the owner, GP was talking about more than an idea, but a digital good:

Act: An unlawful taking (idea or physical good)

Intent: 1. Dishonesty; (idea or physical good) OR 2. To permanently deprive (physical good only)

You would be right if the intent was only (2) with intent to permanently deprive as the argument, but that is not the case, it is OR (1) taking dishonestly.

Lets remove "ideas" and put it into perspective with a "good", for clarity. I steal your car and chop it up and sell for parts (a unlawful taking with intent to permanently deprive = theft); alternatively, I steal your car at night, go joyriding and return it in the morning before you even know (unlawful taking without intent to permanently deprive...would you say that is not theft? If so you would be wrong even though I never intended to permanently deprive, because it is an unlawful taking and my intent was dishonest = theft)

I would say that is not theft. According to my lay-person's understanding of the law, what you've described is called criminal conversion.

I also remain unconvinced of your notion that copyright infringement is theft.

So, legal mental state must be a particular (non-intuitive) thing, because if the other posters on this thread think its not dishonest, then they're clear of any wrongdoing re: digital piracy. Right?

> Since I foresee the definition of dishonesty being the next issue here, that has been defined in case law, but generally where the person intended to take property they did not have a legal right to take.

Intent is a legal term of art and not purely subjective mental state pursuant to the natural definition - so in this context it is fair to say mental state is non-intuitive.

Another example...if you throw your car keys at me and tell me I can take your car for the night, but unbeknownst to me it wasn't your car at all, then I would not have the mental state required to be convicted of theft because while I committed the act (unlawful taking) I did not have the mental state required (dishonesty in the taking or intent to permanently deprive). That would be true lack of intent, whereas, in your example there would be intent to take a digital good, but a moral objection/indifference to the law.

I recall in law school a student once told our Con Law professor, "I don't believe in Judges being appointed to the bench" and supported his position with 5-10 minutes of very strong arguments against the concept, at the end of the diatribe our Con Law professor simple said, "whether you believe in appointed Judges or not, I assure you they exist". The same would be true of laws, whether you believe in/support them or not, that does not negate their existence or ones intent of committing the act, to be distinguished from where one truly did not intend for the act to occur.

• Someone says they do not like cats and have no interest in having one as a pet. A cute stray kitten shows up on their doorstep, they take pity and feed it. They fall in love with it and keep it. They might say that the kitten "stole" their heart.

• An actor playing a minor role in a play gives a performance that outshines the performance of the stars. Many would say that the actor "stole" the show.

• An employee of a rival company poses as a janitor to gain access to your lab and takes a photo of a whiteboard containing the formula for a chemical that is a trade secret in your manufacturing process. It would be common to say that the rival company "stole" your secret formula.

• When crackers gain access to a company's list of customer email addresses, passwords, or credit card numbers, it is commonly said that the data was "stolen".

• A team that has been behind since the start of the game but wins on a last second improbable play is often said to have "stolen" the game.

If enough people pirate, it changes the perceived value of a digital good to $0 or near $0 and will eventually put the person out of business. The big businesses can handle it just fine. The small companies are the ones you are hurting.

The app store, while not pirating, is a good example of this. Apps are no 99 cents. If you try to make an app more expensive than this, people generally will complain or not buy it at all. Why? Because the perceived value of an app is 99 cents.

It's very similar to the principals of currency.

Anecdotal evidence here, but I have a successful app on Google Play (which is commonly viewed as a less-willing-to-pay audience) at 5$+, despite the fact that the app is FOSS and you can download the binary from the home page: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.aprsdroid....

If you take a copy of an item you would have purchased you just took the income.

Face it, you're a fringe view.

The code is:

> Whoever transports, transmits, or transfers in interstate or foreign commerce any goods, wares, merchandise, securities or money, of the value of $5,000 or more, knowing the same to have been stolen, converted or taken by fraud; or ....

The semantics of "theft" absolutely do apply

Definition of theft: the act or crime of stealing.

Definition of steal: to take (something that you are not supposed to have) without asking for permission. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stealing

So the people trying to get through the not stealing it is copying due to a technical definition of theft are wrong. Stealing is having a copy that you didn't get permission to take.

My other ethics brain is wondering how NOT taking property but a copy seems to also allow sneaking into a movie theater, concert or sporting event to watch something. You are neither taking anything or even copying you are just watching. Is this also not theft?

Photos on a public web page are implicitly giving you permission to view the photo and the technology need you to have a local copy for viewing. That does not mean you can grab the photos from say National Geographic and re bundle them put them on you website surrounded by adds. They are not giving you permission to do anything but view the pictures.

> Thus the semantics of "theft" do not apply

You say they don't. They say they do. The law may agree with you right now, but then there are places where the law still allows for slaves, so I wouldn't put any weight in what the law says.

>Piracy is just fucking theft, period.

No it isn't. Exclamation mark. ! > .

I don't agree with the law in other parts of the world, therefor I don't need to respect the law in the part of the world where I live?

Respecting laws is no different from accepting bullying. I respect murder and rape laws not because they are laws but because the arguments against killing win over those for killing, and the arguments against rape win over those for rape.

But the arguments against piracy lose to the arguments for piracy.

According to what/whom?

The law: no, that was illegal.

Reality: reality never stopped Jack.

To the victims or their loved ones: no, but it wouldn't have been fine even had it be legal back then. The law had nothing to do with if they thought it was fine or not.

To me: I wasn't there back then, my opinion back then didn't exist either way.

To put it simply, that what Jack did was wrong has nothing to do with it being illegal.

It's not about what someone thinks. It's about arguments and principles that can be applied universally.

> he very much disagreed

It's not about disagreeing with arguments. It's about refuting arguments to show them wrong.

I am less sure than you are that Jack the Ripper has ever produced refutations to the universalized principled arguments against the initiation of force that so many have written about through the ages.

According to my argument, it would be fine to use lethal force against Jack the Ripper initiating violence, since it is morally OK to use violence for self-defense (according to universal arguments, meaning that all participants can abide by this principle without contradictions arising).

Without wanting to sound condescending, the difference between what I am saying and what you think I said is that you think I am considering the ego of the persons involved. What Jack the Ripper's ego "thinks" and "agrees with" is irrelevant. What is relevant is facts that don't involve the ego - namely, did Jack the Ripper produce a universalized principled argument to justify his actions? The answer, so far as I know, is no.

It's not about what an ego thinks, it's about whether an argument exists.

Given that a content creator is only able to sustainably (i.e. without going broke) create content provided that they have an income, and given that creating content takes enough time that it is infeasible to both create content and earn income from another source at the same time, then a content creator must be able to earn income from their content if they are going to create it sustainably.

Given that consumers want content from content creators whose content they have enjoyed in the past, and given that a content creator must be able to earn income from their content if they are going to create it sustainably, content creators should be able to earn income from their content

Given that when a person pirates (or otherwise obtains for free) content the content creator earns no income from their content if everybody were to pirate content, content creators would earn no income from their content

Given that if everybody were to pirate content, content creators would earn no income from their content and given that content creators should be able to earn income from their content then not everybody should pirate content

Given that if not everybody should perform an action then nobody should perform the action, and if not everybody should pirate content then nobody should pirate content.

I find it extremely ironic that you are making that point. What you are doing is precisely declaring a law about a complex and controversial issue to be invalid because there is an "universal and absolute argument" (aka, you think so) against that law. That's not how things work. Why would the things Jack the ripper thinks and agrees with be irrelevant and yours be "universalized arguments" that everyone must accept?

EDIT:

>According to my argument, it would be fine to use lethal force against Jack the Ripper initiating violence

Precisely. According to your argument. Not a universal truth.

Anyways, I'm not saying that the conclusion is wrong, just the argument

The thing that just boils my blood is people talking about how they are entitled to pirate content because content creators don't make it available in the way they want it. If you want to pirate stuff, that's your business. Just don't try to justify it.

What the above user is saying, is: Suppose congress passed a law saying "X is illegal". Does that mean that X is immoral? The answer is clearly no, because congress passes all sorts of idiotic/insane laws.

consider:

x ∈ X x ∈ I X ⊆ L Y ⊆ L therefore ∀ y ∈ Y, y ∈ I or even just ∃ y ∈ Y, y ∈ I

that doesn't make any sense.

That's basically what Lawtonfogle was saying, where X is some other country's laws, Y is our country's laws, L is the set of all laws, and I is the set of immoral laws. The fact that slavery is legal somewhere else only proves that's it's possible for a bad law to exist. Doesn't mean that we have bad laws in our own countries (which of course we do, however)

Do I follow the law so I don't get in trouble? Yes.

Do I use the law to decide what rights people have? No.

The law is only relevant because there are people who choose to enforce it with violence, it has no place among a discussion of morals, ethics, or rights.

Tell that to the cable companies and radio stations that got their start the same way. Nearly every major media distribution channel in this country at least was founded on piracy. [Source: http://goo.gl/fN62uy]

The recurring pattern is that these people committing acts of piracy had a larger goal/conclusion in mind. They often ended up legally servicing and selling media and entertainment on a far larger scale than they ever illegally stole it. These people didn't have the resources and content to go about their business otherwise, and saw fit to commit acts of theft in the short-term to convince people that the core of their structure was worth getting access to content legally. The vast majority of pirates don't have such ambitions. They just want free movies.

So an action by the likes of a nascent Spotify, cable company, or radio station (or whomever) is OK as long as the long-term ends justify the short-term means?

> The vast majority of pirates don't have such ambitions. They just want free movies.

How do you know what they want? Can you read each of their minds?

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Piracy

Language is not fixed, the meanings of words shift all the time.

Obviously the bottle of concentrated smell costs money, though.

If you read this, you are a thief, you just stolen that information from me. Do you agree?

Arguing about labels is stupid, but so is misusing a word for financial gain.

-----------

If you read this, you are a thief, you just stolen that information from me. Do you agree? Arguing about labels is stupid, but so is misusing a word for financial gain.

But seriously, even if piracy is theft, it's a different kind of theft, so arguing "oiracy is theft, theft is bad, therefore piracy is bad" is still a bad argument. It would be the best, if everybody focused on the actual matter at hand instead of pointless arguments by associacion.

Which means nothing. Whether people have the right to or not, they can do it with absolutely no personal repercussions, so they do. Lecturing and ranting and wishing things were different isn't going to change that.

That's true, but since when does that matter? The government doesn't have the right to do a bunch of things they do. So what?

> Suddenly, smaller markets around the world have their industry gutted by piracy, smaller labels have to shut down, bigger labels have to fire hundreds of less successful artists [...]

Similar and worse things happen when you increase the minimum wage. Why should I stop illegally downloading mp3 files by listening to your side's argument if you side usually will stop listening when I make the same arguments about increasing the minimum wage?

That's the beauty of this. By downloading mp3 files I'm actually getting back at everyone that doesn't care to learn economics enough to be against the minimum wage.

There is no evidence whatsoever for that end-of-world scenario of yours.

Why are "piracy=theft" people always angry?

Then again, if this lands you in jail, or without internet access for downloading pirated material ("tree strikes laws" etc) then you'd do care.

So, not caring might be a short-term option, but it's not a long term political stance.

Not just because of the off-chance of being hit with a lawsuit as mentioned, but mainly because this leads to even more powerful DRM (it's not impossible: there are programs that are considered virtually "uncrackable" and indeed haven't been cracked for 5-6 years, despite popular demand, usually constly pro applications using some dongle or internet based security scheme), more restrictions for legitimate users (who, for example, won't jailbreak their devices), etc.

Note that I'm not criticizing your use of e-books, just presenting an alternative.

But I think it's important that we maintain the community to circumvents copyright. Copyright, the way it is implemented today, is anti-cultural. If we have any hope of harvesting our incredible digital archiving ability, we must maintain ways to keep content free of DRM. But it's up to us - no one will do it for us.

Access and transferability are only two rights specified.

Anonymity, open formats, and freedom from arbitrary withdrawal of the book (Amazon famously exercised this capability on 1984 of all titles) are other factors.

And don't underestimate power of law. The computer software industry has long used rampant piracy of their products, often tacitly encouraged, as a lever to squeeze users for as much revenue as possible, under colour of law. That's only one of several such applications of this particular lever.

RMS has been, and continues to be, highly prescient on virtually all areas of free access to information, software or otherwise.

And yes, he does offer specific technical alternatives.

Amazon's been large enough to exert its will on publishers before.

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/05/amazon-m...

Manufactured scarcity is not something I approve of. So to answer the questions that follow: No and no.

I don't approve of manufactured scarcity of "more important things" like food/water/electricity - why would I approve of it for entertainment and other trivial things? It being "non-essential" doesn't give them moral justification, in my opinion.

Just because they can doesn't mean they should.