Re:U.S. Senators Introduce SMART Copyright Act to Combat Piracy
by DebtDeflation on Monday March 21, 2022 @05:55PM
(#30760220)
The analogy fails because the tax accountant has finite time to spend completing tax returns and your action directly took some of that time. Whereas with IP, there are not a limited amount of bits to copy and you making that copy did not restrict the availability of those bits to someone else.
Re:U.S. Senators Introduce SMART Copyright Act to Combat Piracy
by gernb on Saturday April 02, 2022 @04:16AM
(#30886668)
The content makers also have limited time to make content. There's no difference. The accountant made some content, a tax form, I copied it. The movie maker made some content, a movie, I copied it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeTybKL1pM4
Except that it is something. I go to my tax accountant, have them calculate my taxes, then, when they send me the filled out paperwork I make a copy, send back the originals, and say "No thanks. Didn't really need this". What would we call that? Theft of time? Theft of labor? Breach of contract? (I didn't sign a contract). Breach of implied contract? Does any of this apply to movies/music? It feels similar except there's more than 1 person making a copy and they didn't "pre-order". Do those differences matter? It still feels like taking the product of someone's labor without compensating them for it, same as the tax accountant example.