Most of the back and forth is predicated on the idea that the digital world works the same as the digital one. It does not!
In the physical world you cannot produce and exact copy of something for zero dollars.
In the digital world you can make many copies at effectively zero cost.
Stealing, theft, is predicated on taking something from someone so they no longer have it.
Making a digital copy does not steal or remove access.
The whole argument, which I would posit is deeply flawed, is that pirating removes imaginary potential profits for reselling the thing copied (not stolen). If that’s so then prove it. Prove that at some point in the future I, or any other given person, would have bought that digital thing. Unless you’ve invented time travel you just can’t.
Copying digital content isn’t theft and pirating isn’t the right thing to call it.
We have to figure out how to better frame or address the digital world that just fundamentally doesn’t operate the same as the physical one.
“Stealing, theft, is predicated on taking something from someone so they no longer have it.”
So if I purchase a product and then its taken away due to service closure or ‘updated’ to be so different as to no longer be recognisable that would be theft surely.
The concept you bring up applied before the digital world took off as well.
For those of us who were around when the whole “YoU WoULdN’t StEaL a CaR!” argument against piracy was being made, it was a false equivalency when it came to ownership back then too.
Copying a song off the radio onto a tape cassette was not the same as breaking into a car, hot-wiring it, and driving off in it. Someone copying a song from the radio onto a cassette was not preventing others from listening to it.
Yes. This is not about theft. It’s about intellectual property rights and royalties via cloning a non-physical creation. They just masquerade it as theft because it helps their argument. It’s disingenuous of them.
Most of the back and forth is predicated on the idea that the digital world works the same as the digital one. It does not!
In the physical world you cannot produce and exact copy of something for zero dollars.
In the digital world you can make many copies at effectively zero cost.
Stealing, theft, is predicated on taking something from someone so they no longer have it.
Making a digital copy does not steal or remove access.
The whole argument, which I would posit is deeply flawed, is that pirating removes imaginary potential profits for reselling the thing copied (not stolen). If that’s so then prove it. Prove that at some point in the future I, or any other given person, would have bought that digital thing. Unless you’ve invented time travel you just can’t.
Copying digital content isn’t theft and pirating isn’t the right thing to call it.
We have to figure out how to better frame or address the digital world that just fundamentally doesn’t operate the same as the physical one.
“Stealing, theft, is predicated on taking something from someone so they no longer have it.”
So if I purchase a product and then its taken away due to service closure or ‘updated’ to be so different as to no longer be recognisable that would be theft surely.
Yes.
The concept you bring up applied before the digital world took off as well.
For those of us who were around when the whole “YoU WoULdN’t StEaL a CaR!” argument against piracy was being made, it was a false equivalency when it came to ownership back then too.
Copying a song off the radio onto a tape cassette was not the same as breaking into a car, hot-wiring it, and driving off in it. Someone copying a song from the radio onto a cassette was not preventing others from listening to it.
Yes. This is not about theft. It’s about intellectual property rights and royalties via cloning a non-physical creation. They just masquerade it as theft because it helps their argument. It’s disingenuous of them.