He's incorrect. If you willingly take on debt even though you know you will not be able to pay it you're committing criminal bankruptcy (in Germany, where Crytek is based). Usually you have to notify the courts if you've been unable to pay for two weeks.

Specifically for wages and insurance dues there's this law: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_st....

Summary: Up to 5 years in prison.

^^ I'm glad someone here gets it. And these kinds of laws are not at all unusual.

In Australia we have the same thing in our Corporations Act: trading while insolvent. Penalties are levied against company directors: $200,000 civil penalty, 5 years imprisonment, and directors being made personally liable for compensating creditors (i.e. 'piercing the corporate veil').

If your business fails, that's unfortunate and you have my sympathy. But it does not give you the right to economically damage the businesses and people around you on your way down.

> If you willingly take on debt even though you know you will not be able to pay it you're committing criminal bankruptcy

But even that's called "criminal bankrupty", and not "credit theft" or something. Possibly because you can't steal credit - it's either given, or it's not given.

In the same way, work is either performed, or it's not performed. It's not somehow stealthily extracted from you while you're not looking.

>It's not somehow stealthily extracted from you while you're not looking

In most cases, salaries are paid for work already performed. So, for at least the first cycle of a missed payroll, the non-paid work was stealthily extracted from you.

And, typically, that's when the company starts telling stories about technical payroll glitches, and so on. Arguably more stealth.

Correction: it's money given under the condition it will be paid back at some point in future. Someone who acquires credit, 'trade-credit' (i.e. deferred invoice payment) or whatever you call the employee/employer equivalent in the full knowledge that they will not be able to pay it back is basically committing fraud. As in, 'obtaining a financial benefit by means of deception'.

But putting aside the legalism, it's just plain wrong.

Yes, fraud. Not theft. There's a difference, and everyone on HN knows it.

People just want to rationalize using the word to mean something different from what it actually means, for dramatic effect.

Your correction didn't apply, btw.

Ok I concede the point. The literal definition of 'theft' is not the same as 'fraud'.

Btw, where's your evidence that 'everyone' on HN knows the difference? We are speaking literally here of course, where 'everyone' means literally every single individual who uses this site. Surely you're not just using hyperbole for 'dramatic effect', as you put it?

At any rate it's ok. I think I understood your non-literal meaning (i.e. the vast majority). But good on you for clearing up that whole 'theft' issue; people were getting very confused there...

What I meant about your correction was that you just tacked on a qualifier after "given".

  - I said credit is given
  - You said credit is given <and stuff>. 

Therefore, no correction.

It really is safe to assume that we all have a shared understanding of what "theft" means in the real world.

It's a simple word, and a simple concept that generally applies to physical property that is taken from its rightful owner, without the owner noticing, or at least without coercion being employed in acquiring it.

If taking someone's property involves coercion, then we're talking about robbery, not theft. We all share this understanding too.

Some people want to use the word for dramatic effect when virtue-signalling online, but that doesn't change the shared understanding.

Is it? Your definition of theft is something taken that is:

- Physical property

- Taken from the rightful owner

- Taken without the owner noticing / no coercion

So let's say I take your ATM card without you noticing. That's theft right? What if I then go to an ATM and drain your bank account? Given that money was never in your possession (it was just a number in an electronic ledger somewhere, one keeping track of all the loans made and credits owed by the bank [your deposit is credit to the bank, for instance]), then I'm not committing theft, right?

Boy, this literal language stuff sure is tough! But I'd appreciate your clarification, as it seems so very important we only ever use language in a completely literal manner.

It's interesting you bring up 'shared understanding'; you beat me to it. I doubt very much that anyone, except maybe your literal self, thinks employers are paying their workers and then physically stealing the money back when people use the phrase 'wage theft'. In other words, there's a 'shared understanding' of the non-literal meaning of that phrase.

I mean, when someone calls someone else an 'oxygen thief' I don't think anyone else (again, except for maybe you) actually believes someone is running around stealthily taking oxygen molecules that don't belong to them. It's just a funny insult that literally everyone (-1) mutually understands in a non-literal way.

And sorry, I have no idea what 'virtue signalling' is. Is it some kind of secret hand signal?

So it's not stealing if you have no money and go eat in a restaurant?

"I was going to pay later!" is not a defense for shoplifting, nor is it a defense for wage theft. Get credit from a bank or a credit card; they're capable of busting your ass for lying about when you'll pay. Employees, especially those who have had their wages stolen, are not in that position.

> "I was going to pay later!" is not a defense for shoplifting, nor is it a defense for wage theft.

Apples and oranges. Shoplifting is a particular kind of theft - not paying someone's salary is not.

A shoplifter takes something from a shop. An employer that doesn't pay someone's salary does not take something from the employee - he refrains from giving.

Besides, work is not physical property. Most people on HN would object to pirating movies being called "theft" of intellectual property, but somehow it's alright to use the word when talking about not being paid one's salary.

Sophistry. Its the same as theft, except its my time that's being taken without compensation. Make up another word for that, that means the same thing as theft if you like.

They're still not the same thing at all.

Is he? So if I'm poor, can I go to a store, take a copy of a Crytek game, and claim "well, I just failed to pay money I don't have" and not be accused of stealing?

Lots of people believe in special exceptions for people in positions of power and wealth, like employers. Some of these people get to make laws.

Disagreeing with an opinion is not a reason to downvote on HN.

as far as I know this (nearly 9 year old) post saying otherwise is still the official ruling on it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

Not this one, where downvote to disagree is described as a bit of a problem: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1057347

Or this one, where pg suggests that people don't downvoting a grey post (I think people do downvote grey posts now, more than they used to.) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658683

this thread also has some comments about voting (and a bunch of other stuff, including ahem politics https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2403696)

wasn't aware of those, thanks.

MANY people do essentially the same thing all the time. They call it torrenting...

Rather than say "well, I just failed to pay money I don't have" you can just say "oh no, it's cool, I'm just downloading it"

Torrenting is relevant if you copy someone's labor. Or otherwise receive value from their preexisting actions without them expending additional effort.

The issue at hand is making a contract for something/labor, using it up, and not paying. It's a totally different topic.

Your error was to go against the 'gimme free stoofs' people. They outnumber us 1 million to 1.

The only people here arguing for "free stuff" are those defending the Crytek execs, who got a bunch of free labor.

If it comes to pass that Crytek cannot, and knowingly could not, pay them then that's when to bandwagon. Not before it's known. That's how it plays out on HN. Guilty before proven innocent.

If you believed everything you read here the world would be a very alien place.

cperciva wrote "a company failing to pay money it doesn't have is not the same thing as stealing", and you wrote he was factually correct. How do you know if he's factually correct, if, as you admit, it's still not known if they knowingly stiffed the workers?

You're the one jumping to conclusions. All I said is that they got a bunch of free labour, which is true regardless of whether they knowingly did so or not.