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Re:Piracy is not theft, Lost sales don't exist, says Minecra... by jcranmer on Wednesday March 03, 2021 @03:00PM (#26333587)
To me, there is a moral distinction between two kinds of infringement, and I think most of the community will broadly feel the same way.

On the one hand, you have filesharing-esque infringement. This is typically indicative either of social norms that are prohibited by DRM (e.g., loaning things you own to other people), or of demand in a market segment that the copyright owner is uninterested in providing (e.g., digital downloads, demo software). In either case, it is pretty strictly a matter of personal consumption and it often doesn't reflect a lost sale (and in many cases, it can create more sales later on).

The other kind is reflected in bootleg copies, or even outright plagiarism. In this case, the people making these copies are seeking to directly profit off of it (note that this isn't restricted to monetary profit), and they are doing so without any recompense or sometimes even acknowledgement to the original owner. It's fundamentally dishonest.

I see no issue with not calling the first kind of piracy theft but referring to the second kind as such.

Re:Piracy is not theft, Lost sales don't exist, says Minecra... by michaelmrose on Wednesday March 03, 2021 @08:53PM (#26337615)
Neither is theft and protecting copyright is only justified if society experiences a net positive from enforcing copyright. There is no inherent moral right for a certain pattern of bits to belong to anyone. If you own a handful of quarters and flip them from Heads Heads Tails to Tails Heads Heads you don't inherently have a moral duty to pay me because I registered that particular combo.

If copyright is justifiable which I think is by no means settled those who benefit from the net positive nature of the system have a moral duty to support it.

If you don't believe copyright is a net benefit then all that's left is the legal matter like a speed limit. You go from having a legal motivation to a desire not to be punished. Have you ever felt moral qualms about going faster than the posted speed limit when it was excessively low?

Small wonder if people disagree on the ethics.

Re:Piracy is not theft, Lost sales don't exist, says Minecra... by jimz on Wednesday March 03, 2021 @04:44PM (#26335084)
The problem is that both forms are treated identically by law, at least in the United States. You can be charged additionally for profiting from piracy but not profiting or not taking credit and mere distribution does not absolve you of the crime. The stakes are always higher when there's a literal loss of liberty hanging as a sword of Damocles and because the terms of protection tends to be arbitrary and punitive in nature, philosophical nuance gives way to legalistic absolutism in applying absolute consequences to potentially speculative harm. As long as the law exists and can be enforced in a way that makes no distinction between the two, anyone who may be affected by its reach must at least put that interpretation first in doing the cost/benefit analysis before more subjective aspects can even be discussed.
Re:Piracy is not theft, Lost sales don't exist, says Minecra... by vinger on Wednesday March 03, 2021 @03:35PM (#26334054)
A bootleg of a music show done in your city gets created. It get's passed on to friends who love it. Someone sells a copy to a friend of a friend.

There is profitting off from the bootleg. There is a benefit to the orginal band (new fans to buy official releases). The world is better off (think of how many bootleg Dylan recordings wouldn't exist, lost to time)

Things can start off as #1 and move into #2 but it doesn't have to be negative.