The laws were brought in, because people were abusing the ability to copy digital media and profiting off of it. Essentially making money off of someone else's hard work. That is what the laws are there to stop.
The unfortunate side effect is that even legitimate copying of digital media is being restricted, and while that is a bummer, it also isn't the end of the world.
But in some ways, you are just trying to shift the entitlement from the person wanting a free ride back onto yourself, suggesting that you should be able to do whatever you want with someone else's work (which it still is, even though you have a copy of it). That simply isn't true.
It is no different to Intellectual Property. If you started photo copying and distributing Pokemon cards, you and others would be benefiting from someone elses work, without them getting compensation for it. Even if you're not profiting monetarily, those other people are certainly profiting in some way.
I am in no way a copyright evangelist, but the argument that just because you didn't deprive them of it means that it is okay just doesn't reside in reality. I agree that in most cases, torrenting or streaming something for free when you should be paying is not a big deal. But to pretend it's ethical is a stretch.
The big elephant in the room is that distribution and maybe even production do not require publishers anymore...and so instead of changing to adapt to the market they are out cracking down on supposed pirates.
It takes a lot of ignorance of the business model of publishers to defend their status as on par with artists.
And this is true for both digital content or something as intangible as an identity.
So I am not really convinced by the simple argument that since the original still exists untouched, everything is fine. Yes, this is surely convenient and better for the original author/owner/creator, but not enough to say nothing harmful happened.
You're paying for the creator's time and labor. Taking the product of that time and labor without compensation is theft.
Loss of income does not equal theft.
Whether you have then been wronged or not is another discussion with valid arguments on both sides.
Why not call it copyright infringement if you want a more neutral term?
More to the point though, labelling the act of downloading the latest film as theft is not conductive to a discussion about the moral justification of piracy, because you are using loaded language to condemn it even before presenting an argument. That is, there appears to be no strong consensus that piracy falls under what is commonly referred to as theft.
(I am under the impression that the term digital piracy did stick regardless of one's position in that debate.)
This is also a inconvenient word, though for different reasons.
There is clear precedent that you are not.
In this case, HBO is a business trying to make profit. It spends enormous amounts of money producing shows. Giving away a copy of their product for free arguably reduces their ability to stay solvent. Thus, theft.
If you illegally take away income from a business, it can be classified as theft. If you do something else illegal that doesn't take away income, it would be hard to classify it as theft. Apologies if I was cryptic.
Spending an enormous amount of money does not entitle anyone to a profit, just ask Webvan.
When you create that original you estimate that you have to sell X-number of copies to get back your money that you put into creating the original. If you want to watch/listen to/read that work you at least partially agree with the author that it's worth something. It may be in your opinion worth less then the price, but it's not up to you to set that price, as you have no idea how much work and resources did the author put into creating it. You have only one right - agree or disagree with the author and either pay him for this work or look for something else that was priced in your range.
Words have commonly accepted definitions, and copyright or contract violation simply does not fall under theft. "I think it's bad, theft is bad, therefore, it's theft" just is an incoherent argument. Just as not hiring you is not murder, even if it in the end were to somehow contribute to you dying.
It's really not that difficult, you can simply look up what these terms mean instead of inventing your own definitions. "Depriving someone of money" is not the definition of theft. And it not only isn't, it would be a braindead definition if it were. Suddenly, buying from your competitor would be theft. Accidentally dropping your dishes would be theft. Pretty much everything would be theft under that definition.
And not dropping them would be, as well!
Technically, you still haven't committed theft, since the intent must be present at the time of the taking.
OTOH, in practical terms (aside from the fact that its still a crime either way), the fact that you did keep it is something that a prosecutor will often have very little trouble convincing a jury is clear evidence that you intended to keep it when you took it.
> It's a copy, and you did not intend to buy it anyway so it's all right
Criminal conversion (in the general case) or joyriding (sometimes a separate offense in the automotive case) is not "all right"; just because it is a different criminal offense than (general or auto) theft, its still a crime, which is kind of the opposite of "all right" from the perspective of the legal system.
WTF?
"It's not theft, therefore it's alright" ... where did you pick up that logic?
Except you're not actually being sued by the manufacturer either, you're actually being sued by the manufacturer's delivery company.
Well, sure, that would be joyriding rather than vehicular theft. Still a crime. [0]
[0] http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/crime-penalties/federal...
Copyright infringement without breach of contract is more like people stealing the Transmit logo https://panic.com/extras/ripoff/
So, no, actually, whatever you do with that book or dvd, if you paid the price you agreed to, you almost always can do with it whatever you like, unless it is illegal. But just as using a chainsaw you bought and paid for to murder someone is not a breach of contract, so is not copying a book you bought.
And in any case, a breach of contract is not theft. It's a breach of contract. That's why we have a separate term for it. Just as destruction of property is not theft. It's destruction of property.
Plus, if you download an unauthorized copy somewhere, you most likely don't have a contract with anyone regarding the thing that you are downloading, so you could not possibly be in violation of the terms of that non-existent contract.
Yes! And breach of contract is not theft.
Calling copyright infringement "stealing" is not much different then calling it "theft".
In case of movies, i didn't hire anyone to create the movie. Also, i would never buy that movie so they lost nothing.
But what if I sold the publishing rights to that video to a corporation who is bound by law to maximize revenue for my benefit? I've declared by releasing my video for public consumption that my interest is purely commercial.
That corporation does not generally have the legal ability to restrict who buys the rights to watch my video. Let's say the corporation decides to price viewings at $100 a pop. Your brother pirating my video and sharing it with his friends would arguably be doing more good for me than the alternative of fewer people watching it and me making a somewhat smaller amount of money.
Now the ethics are way more muddled. I'm not saying copyright is a bad thing or that infringement is a good thing. What I'm saying is that technological, cultural, and legal hurdles have made the content distribution market non-efficient and therefore non-optimal for content producers. It's virtually impossible for pricing mechanisms to maximize revenue, so there's always going to be situations where piracy makes sense because the content creators won't be able to make money on every viewing, but still derives a benefit from broader consumption anyway.