> There is no actual pirating going on when you copy a digital file

Note we did have this conversation, years if not decades before. Everyone "in the know" already understands this. I bet most HN readers understand this.

It's just that general consumers don't, and there was a successful propaganda campaign by media owners and distributors to label this as "piracy", and the name stuck.

It seems educating users is an uphill battle when fighting against a propaganda campaign by companies with deep pockets.

> There is no actual pirating going on when you copy a digital file.

I can't tell if you're taking the word literally or not. For the sake of argument:

Obviously there is no boat-stealing or plundering involved - no Johnny Depp or kraken here. But separately from whatever meaning you attach to the word "piracy" - illegally downloading creative works is theft. You are not entitled to someone else's creative work under any conditions other than those that they set, period.

Unless an artist explicitly says "here's this public domain artwork, share it however you want" (which some people do!), pirating is stealing - you are taking the work of someone's hands without paying them for it, and it literally doesn't matter if you wouldn't have paid for it in the first place, because the work does not belong to you - it belongs to the creator and they get to set the terms of use.

If you want a game or a TV show or a movie so badly - make it yourself. Put your own effort and time and resources and creative energy into it - then you can set whatever terms you want on its distribution.

Believing that you have the right to take whatever creative work that someone else put their effort into that you can get away with not paying for is one of the most extreme cases of entitlement I've ever witnessed, and it demonstrates an extreme selfishness and lack of respect for other human beings as equals.

I would be very interested to hear what moral axioms could justify the position of "I can take whatever I want from other people as long as it doesn't deprive them of a physical good".

Illegally downloading creative works is most assuredly _not_ theft, according to either the dictionary or the legal definitions, as no possessions are being taken and no one is being deprived of their property. Downloading creative works may or may not constitute copyright infringement; Relabeling it as "theft" is nothing more than a dishonest attempt at re-framing the conversation in a way that maximally benefits corporate interests.

It's similar to theft only in the sense that you get stuff for free without permission.

Before electronic copies, the only way to do that would be to physically steal such a thing. However, if it were possible to make copies of things via magic, without depriving people of such things, I don't think people would consider it theft. In literature, people tended to look on the idea of such things as wonderful miracles, to be celebrated -- feeding a herd of people from only a few fish, or a fairy godmother spinning fancy clothes via magic. No one ever reading Cinderella has ever considered it immoral for the fairy godmother to generate such a thing, and I suspect that most of society would similarly view it as natural and moral to let friends have copies of things that we have.

Imagine being able to say, "Oh, yeah, this desk has perfect ergonomics for me! here's the pattern/recipe and you can print one once you get home", or "oh yeah, I like this TV design way better than my old one, here's how you can make one too" -- in short, we _absolutely_ would download a car, or give someone else a copy of our car.

Now if only we could figure out how to pass value to creators and inventors in a way that isn't threatened by that, or by the advent of inventing-things-via-AI.

You are wrong about copying. It was perfectly normal to photocopy books at schools and universities since these were long out of print, the libraries didn't have enough copies, or whatever other reason, in some areas of the world even before computers.

Your points strongly align with my views, and “how to pass value” is why I have been so excited by contract-native blockchains.

I can imagine a world where each creative negotiates their public contract associated with a work, then when the work is released anyone in the world can pay/donate anything they want to the wallet in direct recognition and know without question that every creator will get a fair piece of it.

“Piracy” would be the same as the radio (a convenient way to get exposure), and I suspect that people who do the actual work would see much less drama.

> Before electronic copies, the only way to do that would be to physically steal such a thing.

Or buy a knockoff for cheap.

As the sibling to yours said, it is closest to forgery or counterfeiting, rather than theft. I don't think that changes it much re. maximally benefiting corporate interests. It might benefit them a little less maximally, but not by much.

You’re right. That one time my employer didn’t pay me for 3 pay circles- it wasn’t theft, it was piracy or copyright infringement. Simply a breach in contract.

Not the same thing.

Nonsense.

When these so called “creatives” (read: administrators) are making billions upon billions nickel and diming every little resemblance to “their work” (read: administrators and investors paying actual creators that lack negotiation skills jack diddly) at the cost of all of society (how far does copyright go these days?), they can stick it.

By pirating, a user is not TAKING something from someone. That is like trying to own an idea and suing people for having the same idea. Digital data is easily duplicated and hurts no one to duplicate. If you wanted to be a twat and micromanage your works, you shouldn’t have digitized it. Go be a traditional oil artist or an opera singer or a circus performer, where in person experiences matter.

If you want all the benefits of the digital world, then suck it up and be ready for digital works to be duplicated.

That's like saying if we want the benefits of markets, be ready for theft. Society was ready for theft, and so created laws to make it illegal. That way we can have the benefit of a market with a low probability of being robbed on the way home. Seems to work out.

I liked the Windows spin it: "You may be a victim of software counterfeiting."

Because they're right, the closest physical equivalent of software "piracy" isn't stealing, which takes the existing item and deprives someone of it, it's forgery, which creates a new "copy" of the item that certainly doesn't have the right provenance and incidentally might, possibly, differ in functional characteristics as well. It devalues legitimate copies of the item in the same ways that counterfeiting does, not the way that theft does.

While you do disclaim that no stealing occurs when pirating at the start of your post, you do not internalize what that means throughout the rest of your comment. This is evident throughout the rest of your comment through your continued choice of using the word "take". No "taking" occurs by making a copy of a file.

Stealing is bad for a specific reason: it's a zero sum game. If you are to benefit from stealing somebody else has to lose something. Stealing is parasitism (benefiting while harming someone else) on other people / society. But if I could magically create a copy of something you own (e.g. your TV), and we both keep our own copy, there is nothing morally wrong with that, even if there are arbitrary laws that make it illegal.

Piracy is closer to the second case. Me making a copy of a file does not limit others from using that file. It is not a zero sum game. It's commensalism (benefiting without harming or benefiting anyone else), not parasitism. Morally it is at worst neutral.

Not to mention that copyright hasn't been a thing for the wast majority of human history and we did just fine. Standing up to arbitrary, unjust laws is a moral good.

Wouldn’t cloning a TV deprive the manufacturer (and all associated parties) of revenue?

Doesn’t copying a digital work without consent deprive the creator (and all associated parties) of revenue?

Isn’t deliberately depriving a person or persons of remuneration for their work stealing?

The laws against making digital copies of a work without the consent of the rights holder are not arbitrary. They’re in place to ensure those who invested time and money into creating something can earn money from the thing they create.

>Wouldn’t cloning a TV deprive the manufacturer (and all associated parties) of revenue?

>Doesn’t copying a digital work without consent deprive the creator (and all associated parties) of revenue?

Depriving of revenue is not stealing, as I outlined in my previous post. The author still has access to their work, and the ability to sell it if there is sufficient demand. If something was stolen, neither of those are the case.

>Isn’t deliberately depriving a person or persons of remuneration for their work stealing?

No, as I outlined clearly in my previous comment. If this were true I could ask you for $100, you could refuse, and that would be theft because you "deprive me of revenue". This would be ridiculous for obvious reasons.

>The laws against making digital copies of a work without the consent of the rights holder are not arbitrary. They’re in place to ensure those who invested time and money into creating something can earn money from the thing they create.

You might have had a case here if copyright ended with the death of the author and was limited to a reasonable time frame within the lifespan of an author, but this has not been the case for a long time. Copyright in the US is up to 70 years after the authors death. That is an arbitrary and unjust law that only benefits mega corps. Hence it is morally right to stand against the law through civil disobedience.

I just can’t accept that depriving someone of revenue for hard work (toil, stress, exhaustion, etc.) isn’t stealing.

The act of people stealing the work is a clear demonstration of sufficient demand, no? If the price is too high or supply too low, that doesn’t excuse theft. It never has.

Wage theft is stealing. If I tell you I’ll paint your house for $100 and then paint your house and you don’t pay me, that’s theft, which is stealing.

Piracy is equivalent to wage theft, which is stealing. A bunch of people did a bunch of work and ask that people pay for the output of their labor. Those who decide to take that output without paying are stealing. They are thieves.

The length of copyright laws is a separate matter. Yeah, they protect major artists and labels with millions, but they also protect small artists who live off their work.

If you take a digital copy of something for free that you should have paid for, you are not a pirate and you are not Robin Hood, you are a thief. The same as someone who walks into a store and steals or snatches a purse off a park bench.

I’ve been seeing people deflect morality over stealing digital copies for most of my life and it’s always amazed me how it’s the only act of thievery that people openly discuss and brag about.

Somehow stealing copies of art is okay, but stealing cars is not.

> I’ve been seeing people deflect morality over stealing digital copies for most of my life and it’s always amazed me how it’s the only act of thievery that people openly discuss and brag about.

Maybe you should try considering why this is so. Perhaps it's not actually thievery?

If I "steal" a production that was made in the 1970s, so what? Who am I hurting?

Corporations that have long outlived the original creator and cry about you not paying them. The horror!

I agree with this. Theft of digital copies is still theft.

Someone made something with the intention of selling _copies_ of said thing.

Taking a copy for free deprives the creator (or the rights owner) of revenue. That is stealing.

Yeah it’s often exceedingly inconvenient or sometimes impossible to legally obtain a copy of a movie, song, book or software. But that still doesn’t justify stealing a copy.

The availability of copies of digital products to you is at the discretion of the rights holder. You don’t get to decide that you now have the right to take a free copy.

If you decide to take a free copy of a digital product without the rights holder’s consent, you are stealing, which is wrong, no matter how much you want the thing or how expensive or difficult it is to obtain.

Not so simple; how many times have I been told by someone they won’t buy my book, they’ll check it out from the library. This is not theft or piracy, but it’s taking the total value of something without compensation to the creator

This is absurd. Libraries are a legal construct that artists accept in order to provide a tradeoff between profit and benefit to society, the library still purchases copies of the work, and as those copies wear out over time and new ones need to be purchase, an individual is still indirectly and effectively paying a small amount to the artist (although, again, even if they weren't it wouldn't matter, because the creator agreed to the terms of the library, unlike with digital theft). They're not remotely comparable to piracy.

> the creator agreed to the terms of the library

Really? When/where?

Check your contracts with the publisher of your book.

Can you link to an example of such a contract? And besides, I thought the First Sale Doctrine meant that no matter what your contract said, once the book was sold that the copyright holder didn't have any say over that copy of it anymore.

I’ve always wondered about this. In need to do some Googling, unless someone knows the answer.

Are libraries entitled to loan any book on the market? Do they need permission? Do they ever provide compensation?

> Are libraries entitled to loan any book on the market? Do they need permission? Do they ever provide compensation?

My understanding is the answers are yes, no, and nothing besides the normal purchase price of the book.

Amd no comparison was made to piracy

I'd be more receptive to copyright if it was the rightful creators who owned rights, and investors could only lease limited rights from the owner. Instead, the capital owners have written the law, and the creators are lucky to get pennies from sale of their work. I see no reason to pay to corp C who bought "rights" from corp B who bought rights from corp A who strongarmed a bookwriter into a one-sided contract where the corp gets all the rights. Taking from robbers isn't theft, it's rightful redistribution of knowledge in our society.

This is a convenient assumption for those who choose to pirate. Even if we assume that it's appropriate to dictate what kinds of contracts artists should or shouldn't enter into with publishers and whether you think they're "strongarmed" or not, this specific scenario only really holds water if you take the time to confirm whether the structure you describe is the one being used in practice before pirating the work.

Self-publishing is growing year over year. More and more authors are publishing their own work on platforms where they get 70% (in case of KDP)-100% (in case of direct sales) royalties. Along with the time to write the actual thing this also usually involves paying out of pocket for things like editors and covers. If you're genuinely committed to this scenario you're describing, I hope you check whether you're actually "taking from robbers" or taking from the author who created the book you're enjoying.

It might be entitlement. But I dont f*cking care anymore.

Having to manage 7 subscription services for the 5 movies I watch per month and having to divide by zero to transfer my files from one device to another is hell.

I don't buy digital goods anymore, except games. And you know why? Because everything is on steam and available with one click.

> But separately from whatever meaning you attach to the word "piracy" - illegally downloading creative works is theft.

Can you look up the legal definition of theft in your country and post it.

Here's mine (Canada)

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-322.ht...

" 322 (1) Every one commits theft who fraudulently and without colour of right takes, or fraudulently and without colour of right converts to his use or to the use of another person, anything, whether animate or inanimate, with intent

(a) to deprive, temporarily or absolutely, the owner of it, or a person who has a special property or interest in it, of the thing or of his property or interest in it;

(b) to pledge it or deposit it as security;

(c) to part with it under a condition with respect to its return that the person who parts with it may be unable to perform; or

(d) to deal with it in such a manner that it cannot be restored in the condition in which it was at the time it was taken or converted. "

Please outline how downloading a movie meets that definition.

I'm not advocating piracy, but lets stop with the "theft" rhetoric which clearly it fails to meet the legal definition.

I can absolutely see that piracy could fit under (a).

"to deprive the owner of it" it being copyright

They have the right over copies, and to make money from it if they choose.

Are you hung up on that it has to be some physical object?

Edit: to be clear, in this reasoning, the thing deprived from someone is not your copy of the movie, but rather the right of copying.

It is not theft.

You really need to use the right word, and that word is infringement.

Theft requires someone somewhere be denied something they own and that does not happen when an unauthorized copy is performed.

Using the right words might lead us to better laws we all can live with. Starting with the wrong ones will continue to hurt everyone.

>Obviously there is no boat-stealing or plundering involved - no Johnny Depp or kraken here. But separately from whatever meaning you attach to the word "piracy" - illegally downloading creative works is theft. You are not entitled to someone else's creative work under any conditions other than those that they set, period.

Well, you've bought into the lie. It is not theft because you are not depriving the original owner of it. it's breach of contract at the very most and it's an incredibly harmful to society contract that will likely never be fixed legally because entrenched interested have too much invested in keeping that system broken and abusing monopoly to rent seek excess profits from the masses.

Believing that you have the right to deprive me of the fruits of my own labor copying something is one of the most extreme cases of entitlement I've ever witnessed. No one is taking anything from anyone. The creator of the work still has their own copy of their work. People are spending their own effort making copies of data released into the wild by the creator and that's it.

Further, the economics of any particular created work where the marginal cost of copying is effectively zero are incredibly clear. The largest welfare improvement is from distributing that created work to everyone for the marginal cost (aka zero) and allowing everyone to create derivative works if they choose. The only reason to have any sort of copyright is to encourage additional works to be created and that should be tempered to the minimum time needed given the massive dead weight loss from distributing said works at above marginal cost. So, how long does a copyright term need to be to encourage new works? I am extremely skeptical of any claim beyond high single digit numbers of years and it is extremely clear that copyright terms measured in decades (or worse in author's life time plus decades) cause massive dead weight loss and are utter insanity.

My rule is I try to pay you, and if you refuse my money, I get it elsewhere. If a movie is in cinemas in my home town, I will pay to watch. Netflix accepts my money, so I pay them every month. Disney, HBO, Hulu, etc. do not (they do not operate in my country), so I do not feel any guilt watching their media by "some other means". After all, I'm not depriving you of any revenue if you don't want any revenue from me to begin with.

> Steam already solved piracy for gaming. Make it easy to download and manage your games.

Honest question, if Steam suddenly ceases to be, are these downloaded games playable?

If the game itself doesn't implement some sort of mandatory Steam login or DRM, then it's as easy as finding and running the executable from the downloaded game files.

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/1355117576985...