Unpopular opinion: I find this comparison a bit off. Compare your theft from the till to your boss taking $100 from your pocket and it seems more even.
The distinctions you name are completely irrelevant, because in both cases people are robbed of $100 they legally own. It doesn’t matter if physical goods or services are exchanged, or if the owner also physically possessed the money at some point.
Idk where you live, but shop owners in my country will absolutely go after every penny someone has stolen from a store, and rightfully so!
Again, no one is saying that they are the same. The argument is that their differences don’t matter in this context, because the negative outcome for the victim is the same. And that’s absolutely not the case for physical theft vs digital piracy, not even close.
Because the most reasonable explanation for being shorted on a paycheck is an accounting error, meaning no malice intended. Unless the employer tried to keep the money after realizing the mistake, they should at most be given a fine.
Assuming the original post meant robbing the store, that’s quite different. There is malicious intent to deprive strangers of their money, and probably at threat of violence. Or even if it was just unattended, the theft is still done with malicious intent. The last situation is much like pickpocketing, so the analogy fits.
If the Law was fair the same amount of harm would be punished by the same sized penalty, quite independently of the method by which such harm was inflicted, and taking $100 from your pocket inflicts exactly the same amount of harm as shorting your paycheck by $100.
There is a reason murder and manslaughter are punished differently. Intent matters when judging people. If you accidentally break an item in a store, that should be treated differently than someone running in there and purposefully smashing the same item.
My reading from the original post is that it’s about the intentional not paying of the correct salary, not something accidental, in which case my point stands that it’s the same harm caused, with intent, hence should be the same penalty.
Unpopular opinion: I find this comparison a bit off. Compare your theft from the till to your boss taking $100 from your pocket and it seems more even.
The fact that the comparison feels off to many despite being perfectly valid is exactly the point.
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The distinctions you name are completely irrelevant, because in both cases people are robbed of $100 they legally own. It doesn’t matter if physical goods or services are exchanged, or if the owner also physically possessed the money at some point.
Idk where you live, but shop owners in my country will absolutely go after every penny someone has stolen from a store, and rightfully so!
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Again, no one is saying that they are the same. The argument is that their differences don’t matter in this context, because the negative outcome for the victim is the same. And that’s absolutely not the case for physical theft vs digital piracy, not even close.
Why’s that?
Because the most reasonable explanation for being shorted on a paycheck is an accounting error, meaning no malice intended. Unless the employer tried to keep the money after realizing the mistake, they should at most be given a fine.
Assuming the original post meant robbing the store, that’s quite different. There is malicious intent to deprive strangers of their money, and probably at threat of violence. Or even if it was just unattended, the theft is still done with malicious intent. The last situation is much like pickpocketing, so the analogy fits.
If the Law was fair the same amount of harm would be punished by the same sized penalty, quite independently of the method by which such harm was inflicted, and taking $100 from your pocket inflicts exactly the same amount of harm as shorting your paycheck by $100.
There is a reason murder and manslaughter are punished differently. Intent matters when judging people. If you accidentally break an item in a store, that should be treated differently than someone running in there and purposefully smashing the same item.
My reading from the original post is that it’s about the intentional not paying of the correct salary, not something accidental, in which case my point stands that it’s the same harm caused, with intent, hence should be the same penalty.