I don't recall the fine print of my TOS, but I would really wonder whether or not the contracts signed allowed for this bullshit, and whether or not such things would hold up in court.
That it looks so much like a real photo may be the point in proving how well it works, although I would imiagine it's very difficult to recreate that entire scene.
Ignoring the fact that there's a theoretical limit where larger video files are not at all worth it, this is a big part of the solution, with perhaps some kind of 'smart routing' and caching being the rest of the solution. A certain amount of the money that ISPs make should be invested into improving the infrastructure. The problems we are facing today are because ISPs have not done that, and have instead just lobbied competition and accountability away. The solution is to bitch slap the ISPs for their negligence and get them to make up for lost time. The only concern would be if we reach the limits of bandwidth before we reach the limits of human input.
'Intellectual property' has many legal similarities to physical property, but it's nature is inherently quite different. Copyrights and patents are regulations that exist at least nominally for the benefit of the public. Assuming that you are part of the laissez faire crowd, you should oppose or at least hope to limit such heavy-handed government interference as the copyright and patent systems bring.
As for net neutrality, the current environment is toxic to any and all competition, so free market arguments don't apply. The linked article talks about new ISPs entering, but that doesn't happen because it generally can't. Also, the claim that ISPs are the same as other private property owners is hardly accurate. It's pretty bold to call the infrastructure THEIR private property when so much of it is located on the private property of others, likely without any consent given by the landowner. It's the local government that they generally do actual business with, and most of the agreements include at the very least the exclusion of direct competition.
That the US can coin money doesn't mean that others can't make their own currencies. Other private currencies do exist, but generally in more limited contexts. Wii, Xbox, Kool-Aid, and Pepsi all have or have had points systems which can be used as currency by those that accept them, and nobody has cracked down on them.
"They may get some subsides and tax cuts ( both of which I hate and would like to eliminate), but they do not live off the tax payers pocketbook. "
Do you not see the inconsistency there? They get some money from government sources. They get the rest from customers paying their bills. That's not horribly different from a public service.
"they compete unlike these socialist organizations we call public institutions"
No, they don't compete. I have two options where I live, internet from the phone company and internet from the cable company. Most of the time, the phone and cable companies have exclusive deals with the city or county government.
"Live in the real world, get off the public dime and compete. purchase goods and services at fair market prices like every one else does."
In the real world, it appears that municipal and member owned institutions are the only practical choices for utilities. Internet is a utility.
I'm not saying there haven't been improvements, but police states generally police hard, not smart (if they did, they'd just be states). IIRC, Israel has far more effective airport security and requires less work than pre-9/11 American airports. They've got it down to a well oiled machine, while the US has pretty much just tried brute force.
I seem to recall reading that we are actually LESS prepared for a real attack. Basically, we've been wiretapping everyone all the time, we don't have the resources to filter through what's important, the signal to noise ratio has gone to hell, and now we're getting less useful information.
There's a certain point where sacrificing freedoms, privacy, and such is no longer worth the benefits sacrificing them makes. Worse yet, these huge losses of freedoms don't seem to work well in practice today. The PATRIOT Act hasn't made Americans safer to any real degree, and the staggering amounts of CCTV haven't been effective in stopping crime in the UK.
This does not change the definition of stealing at all. Even if you consider it pointless.
Copyright infringement being bad in the same way as theft is the entire reason to debate this. If
Wrong again, do you not realize that you just continue to reword the same flawed argument. This boils down to if stealing is contingent on the loss of property, which it is not.
I was specifically addressing the false notion that because there is harm, an action is theft. Harm caused does not mean an act is theft. For example, if I punch you in the face, you are harmed, but it is not theft.
The illegal part of this is how you got that copy in the first place. You made a copy of their property without their permission.
THEIR PROPERTY is the legal right to control the production of copies, not the copies themselves. I did not acquire their legal right. If own a legal copy, that copy is MY PROPERTY.
It is not like trespassing on someones land. I don't know why you think it is. You said so yourself that in that scenario there is no acquisition which should clue you in that it is not the same.
In trespassing on land, the wrongdoing is interference with one's legal right to exclude occupying the land. In copyright infringement, the wrongdoing is interference with one's legal right to exclude production of copies.
They are not the same, on what grounds do they have to be exactly the same to both be considered stealing?
They don't have to be exactly the same, but they have virtually nothing in common other than both being illegal.
Regardless of what the punishments where, the convictions where still made. I think it's reasonable certain types of theft are more damaging then other types of theft. That still doesn't make the less damaging type not theft at all.
Grand theft constitutes two factors: the act committed was theft. The damages of said act were above a certain statutory amount. You conclude that the act committed was theft. The damages in these cases are going to above the statutory amount. Therefore, all of the companies that infringed the GPL were felons in your viewpoint.
First, there is not requirement of "harm" being done for something to be considered stealing.
If we assume that is true, than not all stealing is bad, which makes the label of 'stealing' pretty much pointless. Bad things are bad because they cause harm. If there is no harm, they are not bad.
If you want to attach the "harm" requirement to this then I refer you to the analogy I made where someone duplicates a guitar for free. It does no harm to you if your purpose is simply to play the guitar. But if you invest the time/money to build the guitar with the intent of selling and someone acquires a copy of your guitar without your permission instead of paying you for it then there is harm done. It doesn't matter if you consider that competition or not since that is beyond the scope of defining what stealing is.
There is more than one kind of harm. The harm in assault is different the harm in theft is different than the harm in fraud. Theft requires a very specific type of harm, which is loss of property. If we are going to call anything non-physical property in this situation, it would be the legal right to stop others from copying. If I illegally download a copy of a movie, it doesn't mean that I have the legal right to stop others from copying, and it doesn't mean that the copyright holder no longer has the right to stop others from copying. It's like when I have trespassed on your land, I have infringed upon your legal rights, but I have not taken anything from you. As far as what would actually be considered the property here is concerned, there is neither loss nor acquisition.
If you wish to have an example of what would be theft of that 'property', something like the dealings of Bridgeport Music with George Clinton would be an example, although it would probably be more accurately described as fraud as well.
Neither one of those apply since in those cases stealing is being misused.
As is the case with copyright infringement. It's being misused when applied to copyright infringement, along with piracy. Traditional usage of piracy is far more specific, and no logic could even try to twist copyright infringement into the actual act of piracy.
Again, you seem to imply that since copyright infringement is not the same as physical theft that it can't be stealing, which is not accurate.
No, I'm saying that physical stealing has very bright line rules that are consistent throughout pretty much the whole world. That copyright infringement doesn't have bright line rules suggests that their natures are drastically different. The fact that physical theft is generally a criminal matter, while copyright infringement is generally a civil manner is another difference. The law is very different, the ethics of it are very different, and the technical acts are very different. On what grounds are they same other than an overly expansive interpretation of the dictionary definition?
This is a good thing, like I said before I don't think copyright infringement is as serious of a crime as things such as murder, and I don't think a majority of the copyright infringement cases should involve jail time
But you said that it's stealing. Stealing is something we consider generally worthy of imprisonment. In the case of GPL/LGPL violations, if we considered copyright infringement stealing, virtually all of those cases would be instances of grand theft, which is not something we generally let slide.
The invalidation of "3" does not automatically invalidate "2". So it is perfectly reasonable that stealing could only require acquisition.
That is true, but 1 and 3 being the same makes more sense than 1 and 2 being the same because the same harm to the victim occurs in 1 and 3. The whole reason to care about this issue boils down to the following: stealing is bad; copyright infringement is stealing; therefore, copyright infringement is bad. Ask yourself why stealing of physical objects (which with current technology, can only happen in sense 1) is bad. Is it because the thief benefits or because the owner is deprived?
I agree with that statement from a moral standpoint (you can't believe an action is illegal in 1 physical location, but believe it is legal in another location.) But from a legal standpoint (ex: public domain) things can be , and often are, illegal in one location but legal in another.
I'm assuming you mean you can't believe an action is immoral in one physical locations, or believe that it SHOULD be illegal in one place but not another. You appear to be acknowledging moral/ethical nonequivalence of copyright infringement and physical theft, which is the most important concern IMO. We certainly don't want to throw a charming man in jail for 'stealing' the hearts of beautiful women or 'stealing' a kiss from one of them, and certainly Jimi Hendrix shouldn't be incarcerated for 'stealing' the limelight from other performers of that era, as we recognize these examples are not the equivalent of physical theft.
However, whether or not something is copyright infringement depends on certain rules, and in the case of when something is in the public domain and various copyright exceptions, these rules vary drastically by jurisdiction. However, physical theft is pretty much the same regardless of where you go. Another difference is that in most instances, copyright infringement is merely a civil manner, not a criminal one, while theft is generally thought of as a criminal act. The instances that it is criminal seem to be targeted largely at street vendors in ethnic enclaves (and the operations behind them if applicable), such as the stereotypical bootlegs one would get in Chinatown. GPL/LGPL violations, which are almost exclusively for-profit, industrial scale matters (the central focus of copyright law at its inception and for most of its history, and the basis for many statutory elements, which is why the RIAA p2p lawsuits results in such disproportionate damages), haven't seen anyone go to jail as far as I know.
I am generally curious what your reasons are for thinking it has been an overall hindrance on the production of works, not that I don't believe you, I'd just like to hear your reasoning.
I think it because that's the data and other evidence on the matter seems to point to less works being produced under copyright and even less under stricter copyright. As for what I think the underlying cause of copyright not working, I attribute a couple of factors:
1) The crafters of copyright weren't modern. The Statute of Anne, largely considered the first complete copyright law, predates the birth of Adam Smith and Sigmund Freud. A deep understanding of economics and psychology are essential to getting a system that is beneficial, and the fields prior to the work of these men could hardly be considered modern. Without a modern understanding, they based their reasoning on faulty premises.
2) Even if we contend they got lucky and the underlying concept could work, we have never bothered to do proper research on what our policy should be. The Statute of Anne had fairly arbitrary terms, the Copyright Act of 1790 was largely just copying the terms of England as an example, and subsequent changes have been largely the result of lobbying and attempts at 'harmonization' of domestic and foreign laws.
I previously provided a link to the definition of steal. Which does not say a party must lose something in order to have something stolen from it.
Let me clarify. We both agree that stealing requires taking, and that the definition of stealing is illegal taking of property. I said that 'taking' can be used in 3 senses. It can refer to 1) acquisition and loss (the bully took my lunch money), 2) acquisition only , and 3) loss only. In the context of steal, only the 1) sense is valid. The 2) and 3) senses are invalid in the context of 'steal.' If 2) and 3) were valid, not only would copying be stealing, but so would vandalism. This is not the case.
Just to reiterate, take can refer to only acquisition, but in the definition of 'steal', it does not.
The cause is not competition, there is no competing involved. It is dealing in stolen goods.
No, it is competition. However, the law temporarily excludes that competition. The Call of Cthulhu is in the public domain in everywhere but the US. Nosferatu is in the public domain in the US, but not elsewhere. If I distribute copies of The Call of Cthulhu and Nosferatu, one would be legal and one wouldn't depending on my locale. An act can't be stealing in some places and not stealing in others.
As for the claim of stolen goods, you should check out Dowling v. US, which held that bootleg copies are not stolen goods.
This all stems from your warped understanding of what stealing is and it's obvious we can't agree on that. But we can agree that a movie costs money to make, do you think you have the right to own that movie for free?
First of all, not thinking that copyright infringement is stealing doesn't mean that you think copyright infringement is okay. However, I do hold that copyright has failed to accomplish its purpose, and has been a net hindrance to the production of works, so I generally have very few qualms with copyright infringement.
Finally, a lack of legal restriction on copying doesn't mean that people have a right to possess copy. I have a collection of phone numbers and names on my cell phone. As that is a database, it is not eligible for copyright in the US. However, you do not have a right to own that database, and you won't own that database, because you do not have access to it and I will not provide you access to it.
You are wrong about this, you've been proven wrong about this over and over yet still claim this.
Where is this proof? The conflict is over which sense or senses of take are appropriate, and you've not provided any evidence that just acquisition is used. Even if you do incorrectly conclude that it is still technically stealing, it does not have the same kind of harm if there is no loss, so they are not morally or ethically equivalent, and the overlap between illicit changing of possession and illicit copying is meaningless semantics.
Which I agree with, but the cause is different (which matters).
The cause is competition. The difference here is that the copyright holder's action of creating has positive externalities. Early customers face the same kind of externalities. The people that bought hard drives 20 years ago have allowed us to buy better hard drives for less money today, but we don't feel compelled to compensate them for that benefit.
The cost for the copyright holders is not reproduction or distribution but instead its production, promotion, and wages. Hence why they hold the right to copy. To insure they can receive compensation for their investment
Copyright holders have distribution and reproduction costs. The high costs of establishing a distribution infrastructure were a big part of why large firms dominated many industries that have copyright. Broadband internet and other technological advances have changed things somewhat, though.
And you are also somewhat incorrect as to why we have copyright. Copyright exists at least nominally for the sake of the public benefit. The theory behind it is that by having the public sacrifice their liberties to give authors and inventors temporary monopolies, they would be more capable of making money from the endeavors and produce more creative works. Hopefully, these additional works produced would justify the public's investment of liberty.
You are simply rejecting specific parts of the definition that don't fit with your personal views. You can do that all you want but that doesn't make it true. I would not argue that setting a guitar on fire is theft and I don't understand what that has to do with anything I said in my previous post. You are, again, trying to associate theft with loss when it is about acquisition.
My point was that theft was about both acquisition and loss. If you have only one of these, it is not theft. My guitar on fire example only involved loss. Also worth noting is that this my example involved things being practically the same for the victim, which is the important one to consider when you are saying something is wrong/bad/immoral. As far as I'm concerned, there isn't a huge difference between my guitar being destroyed and my guitar being stolen. However, the law and most people recognize the difference between the two even though the harm is the same. With copyright infringement, the harm is not the same, so it's in a far weaker position.
That is not even close to applying to our situation. That is a new and better product being manufactured and developed by a different company at a cost for them. People who want buggies will still need to buy buggies and people who want automobiles will still need to buy automobiles.
The harm is of the same type, specifically, displacement of sales and/or potential profit.
An interesting argument to be sure, but once you regrow that potato it now belongs to you. Why you ask? The key is that you regrow the potato. The genetic instructions may be the same, but the actual plant material is not. You had to provide nutrients, water, and sunlight in order for it to grow (all of this done at expense to you). Therefor this is an entirely new potato. If you want to give it away for free then thats fine, but you are doing so at you own expense, not the expense of the potato company you initially bought the potato from.
And when I torrent a movie, I have to rebuild the movie file. I have to provide bandwidth, electricity, and hardware in order to rebuild it, all at my expense. Copyright infringement is not done at the expense of copyright holders, all of the reproduction costs are carried by 'pirates' or their associates.
The "bunch of crap" I added was in clarifying the context of 'take' in that definition.
Also, note that the definition of 'theft' is 'stealing OR larceny'. They are not the same thing..
I see definitions that include both descriptions, such as
the act of stealing; the wrongful taking and carrying away of the personal goods or property of another; larceny.
And I see the merriam webster legal dictionary as
: LARCENY; broadly : a criminal taking of the property or services of another without consent
Note that they refer to 'taking' without consent as larceny. If you used 'taking' in the context where only acquisition is needed, than that would mean that copyright infringement is larceny. Of course, if you use the "bunch of crap" about 'taking' that I used in the definition of 'stealing' here, then you can see it's the larceny we are all familiar with.
For example, if you commit identity theft, you have STOLEN the victims' identity. Of course, he still has his identity too
Identity theft is more accurately described as identity fraud, although there are forms of fraudulent identification that would not be labeled 'identity theft.'
Some, but not all, stealing is larceny. All larceny is stealing. Is that too complicated?
I'll agree with that, but probably not on the terms you are thinking. Stealing includes robbery, larceny and perhaps some other subdivisions depending on the local law.
It would likely be a big improvement, but it doesn't mean that it fixes the problem. Also, doing so would almost certainly involve clearly legitimizing software patents.
So it is possible to take something without the other party losing based on what you have just said.
If we assume that take in the definition of steal can refer to all contexts. However, I don't think that's the case. Let's say I'm playing my guitar in the park, I put it down to get a drink of water from a fountain, and when I come back, you've set my guitar on fire. I have lost my guitar. However, I would not consider it accurate to say you stole my guitar. The act you committed was vandalism or destruction of property, not theft.
Here's a breakdown as I see it
Loss and acquisition: theft/stealing
loss only: vandalism/destruction of property
acquisition only: copying
Your example involving the guitar is a little off. Your purpose for owning the guitar is for your personal enjoyment (playing it). So someone creating a copy does not affect your purpose for owning the guitar at all. So in that scenario you are still happy even if someone makes a billion copies of your guitar. Suppose however that your purpose of owning the guitar was to sell it. If someone made a copy of your guitar* instead of buying it from you, then that absolutely affects your purpose for owning the guitar. So in the second scenario you are not happy (especially if someone creates a billion guitars).
I may not be pleased with that result, but being unhappy doesn't mean it was theft. The kind of 'damage' I suffer is the same kind of effect that competition brings. You can argue that the automobile industry 'stole' the customers from buggy whip manufactures, but in that context, we consider that kind of act to be okay. In fact, we condone it so much that we prosecute parties that engage in behavior to stop competition.
Now, we do have an example of digital copying that predates copyright and is still in use today: asexual reproduction. Quite a few organisms are capable of asexual reproduction. Among them is the potato. If I buy a potato, and if I cut off a piece with an eye, I can grow a potato from that. That potato will genetically identical to the potato I bought. Are you saying that when me and my family have done that in the past, we were thieves?
The definition used is to take property wrongfully, which is almost exactly what I said. The debate would be over my definition of 'take', which can refer to loss, acquisition, or both. If the reason you want to stop stealing is because stealing is bad, than the important part is what makes something bad: the harm done. The harm in stealing is in the loss part. Take for example, my guitar. If someone steals it, I will be unhappy because I don't have a guitar. If someone destroys it, I will be unhappy in more or less the same manner because I still don't have a guitar. If someone copies my guitar in a replicator and keeps the copy, I won't be bothered because I still have my guitar.
And no, it would not be reasonable to say that my friend stole my idea, at least not if intended literally. The reasonable argument would be that if I came up with an idea, and a friend of mine claims that he came up with the idea, that he stole the credit (he gained the credit and I lost the credit), although fraud may be a better description.
It's illegal taking of property, with 'taking' in this context requiring both an acquisition of property by the party labeled a 'thief' and a loss of property labeled the 'victim.' This campaign is against illegal downloading, which does not involve any loss of property. Rather, what has happened that is illegal in this situation is that a copy has been made without permission of the copyright holder. If you are a Cro-Magnon who can't comprehend copyright and copyright infringement by itself, and thus need metaphors for a crutch, it is far closer to trespassing on land than theft, as trespassing is use of land without permission, so call it trespassing instead of thief if you wish to be at least labeled a hominid, and call it illegal downloading, copyright infringement, or another technically accurate term if you wish to be classified as a modern human
And most of the 'big evil corporations' aren't really in to doing anything that benefits their competitors
What? 'Big evil corporations' often lobby for their industry, and they form organizations like the MPAA to collectively lobby and do other work on their behalf. Truth be told, a lot of the 'competitors' aren't particularly concerned with competition as much as profits.
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I don't recall the fine print of my TOS, but I would really wonder whether or not the contracts signed allowed for this bullshit, and whether or not such things would hold up in court.
That it looks so much like a real photo may be the point in proving how well it works, although I would imiagine it's very difficult to recreate that entire scene.
You can play back a partially downloaded file in quite a few video players.
Ignoring the fact that there's a theoretical limit where larger video files are not at all worth it, this is a big part of the solution, with perhaps some kind of 'smart routing' and caching being the rest of the solution. A certain amount of the money that ISPs make should be invested into improving the infrastructure. The problems we are facing today are because ISPs have not done that, and have instead just lobbied competition and accountability away. The solution is to bitch slap the ISPs for their negligence and get them to make up for lost time. The only concern would be if we reach the limits of bandwidth before we reach the limits of human input.
'Intellectual property' has many legal similarities to physical property, but it's nature is inherently quite different. Copyrights and patents are regulations that exist at least nominally for the benefit of the public. Assuming that you are part of the laissez faire crowd, you should oppose or at least hope to limit such heavy-handed government interference as the copyright and patent systems bring.
As for net neutrality, the current environment is toxic to any and all competition, so free market arguments don't apply. The linked article talks about new ISPs entering, but that doesn't happen because it generally can't. Also, the claim that ISPs are the same as other private property owners is hardly accurate. It's pretty bold to call the infrastructure THEIR private property when so much of it is located on the private property of others, likely without any consent given by the landowner. It's the local government that they generally do actual business with, and most of the agreements include at the very least the exclusion of direct competition.
That the US can coin money doesn't mean that others can't make their own currencies. Other private currencies do exist, but generally in more limited contexts. Wii, Xbox, Kool-Aid, and Pepsi all have or have had points systems which can be used as currency by those that accept them, and nobody has cracked down on them.
"They may get some subsides and tax cuts ( both of which I hate and would like to eliminate), but they do not live off the tax payers pocketbook. " Do you not see the inconsistency there? They get some money from government sources. They get the rest from customers paying their bills. That's not horribly different from a public service.
"they compete unlike these socialist organizations we call public institutions" No, they don't compete. I have two options where I live, internet from the phone company and internet from the cable company. Most of the time, the phone and cable companies have exclusive deals with the city or county government.
"Live in the real world, get off the public dime and compete. purchase goods and services at fair market prices like every one else does." In the real world, it appears that municipal and member owned institutions are the only practical choices for utilities. Internet is a utility.
So, does that mean the telecoms are going to return the BILLIONS in subsidies and tax cuts they've received?
I'm not saying there haven't been improvements, but police states generally police hard, not smart (if they did, they'd just be states). IIRC, Israel has far more effective airport security and requires less work than pre-9/11 American airports. They've got it down to a well oiled machine, while the US has pretty much just tried brute force.
I seem to recall reading that we are actually LESS prepared for a real attack. Basically, we've been wiretapping everyone all the time, we don't have the resources to filter through what's important, the signal to noise ratio has gone to hell, and now we're getting less useful information.
There's a certain point where sacrificing freedoms, privacy, and such is no longer worth the benefits sacrificing them makes. Worse yet, these huge losses of freedoms don't seem to work well in practice today. The PATRIOT Act hasn't made Americans safer to any real degree, and the staggering amounts of CCTV haven't been effective in stopping crime in the UK.
Copyright infringement being bad in the same way as theft is the entire reason to debate this. If
I was specifically addressing the false notion that because there is harm, an action is theft. Harm caused does not mean an act is theft. For example, if I punch you in the face, you are harmed, but it is not theft.
THEIR PROPERTY is the legal right to control the production of copies, not the copies themselves. I did not acquire their legal right. If own a legal copy, that copy is MY PROPERTY.
In trespassing on land, the wrongdoing is interference with one's legal right to exclude occupying the land. In copyright infringement, the wrongdoing is interference with one's legal right to exclude production of copies.
They don't have to be exactly the same, but they have virtually nothing in common other than both being illegal.
Grand theft constitutes two factors: the act committed was theft. The damages of said act were above a certain statutory amount. You conclude that the act committed was theft. The damages in these cases are going to above the statutory amount. Therefore, all of the companies that infringed the GPL were felons in your viewpoint.
If we assume that is true, than not all stealing is bad, which makes the label of 'stealing' pretty much pointless. Bad things are bad because they cause harm. If there is no harm, they are not bad.
There is more than one kind of harm. The harm in assault is different the harm in theft is different than the harm in fraud. Theft requires a very specific type of harm, which is loss of property. If we are going to call anything non-physical property in this situation, it would be the legal right to stop others from copying. If I illegally download a copy of a movie, it doesn't mean that I have the legal right to stop others from copying, and it doesn't mean that the copyright holder no longer has the right to stop others from copying. It's like when I have trespassed on your land, I have infringed upon your legal rights, but I have not taken anything from you. As far as what would actually be considered the property here is concerned, there is neither loss nor acquisition.
If you wish to have an example of what would be theft of that 'property', something like the dealings of Bridgeport Music with George Clinton would be an example, although it would probably be more accurately described as fraud as well.
As is the case with copyright infringement. It's being misused when applied to copyright infringement, along with piracy. Traditional usage of piracy is far more specific, and no logic could even try to twist copyright infringement into the actual act of piracy.
No, I'm saying that physical stealing has very bright line rules that are consistent throughout pretty much the whole world. That copyright infringement doesn't have bright line rules suggests that their natures are drastically different. The fact that physical theft is generally a criminal matter, while copyright infringement is generally a civil manner is another difference. The law is very different, the ethics of it are very different, and the technical acts are very different. On what grounds are they same other than an overly expansive interpretation of the dictionary definition?
But you said that it's stealing. Stealing is something we consider generally worthy of imprisonment. In the case of GPL/LGPL violations, if we considered copyright infringement stealing, virtually all of those cases would be instances of grand theft, which is not something we generally let slide.
That is true, but 1 and 3 being the same makes more sense than 1 and 2 being the same because the same harm to the victim occurs in 1 and 3. The whole reason to care about this issue boils down to the following: stealing is bad; copyright infringement is stealing; therefore, copyright infringement is bad. Ask yourself why stealing of physical objects (which with current technology, can only happen in sense 1) is bad. Is it because the thief benefits or because the owner is deprived?
I'm assuming you mean you can't believe an action is immoral in one physical locations, or believe that it SHOULD be illegal in one place but not another. You appear to be acknowledging moral/ethical nonequivalence of copyright infringement and physical theft, which is the most important concern IMO. We certainly don't want to throw a charming man in jail for 'stealing' the hearts of beautiful women or 'stealing' a kiss from one of them, and certainly Jimi Hendrix shouldn't be incarcerated for 'stealing' the limelight from other performers of that era, as we recognize these examples are not the equivalent of physical theft.
However, whether or not something is copyright infringement depends on certain rules, and in the case of when something is in the public domain and various copyright exceptions, these rules vary drastically by jurisdiction. However, physical theft is pretty much the same regardless of where you go. Another difference is that in most instances, copyright infringement is merely a civil manner, not a criminal one, while theft is generally thought of as a criminal act. The instances that it is criminal seem to be targeted largely at street vendors in ethnic enclaves (and the operations behind them if applicable), such as the stereotypical bootlegs one would get in Chinatown. GPL/LGPL violations, which are almost exclusively for-profit, industrial scale matters (the central focus of copyright law at its inception and for most of its history, and the basis for many statutory elements, which is why the RIAA p2p lawsuits results in such disproportionate damages), haven't seen anyone go to jail as far as I know.
I think it because that's the data and other evidence on the matter seems to point to less works being produced under copyright and even less under stricter copyright. As for what I think the underlying cause of copyright not working, I attribute a couple of factors:
1) The crafters of copyright weren't modern. The Statute of Anne, largely considered the first complete copyright law, predates the birth of Adam Smith and Sigmund Freud. A deep understanding of economics and psychology are essential to getting a system that is beneficial, and the fields prior to the work of these men could hardly be considered modern. Without a modern understanding, they based their reasoning on faulty premises.
2) Even if we contend they got lucky and the underlying concept could work, we have never bothered to do proper research on what our policy should be. The Statute of Anne had fairly arbitrary terms, the Copyright Act of 1790 was largely just copying the terms of England as an example, and subsequent changes have been largely the result of lobbying and attempts at 'harmonization' of domestic and foreign laws.
Let me clarify. We both agree that stealing requires taking, and that the definition of stealing is illegal taking of property. I said that 'taking' can be used in 3 senses. It can refer to 1) acquisition and loss (the bully took my lunch money), 2) acquisition only , and 3) loss only. In the context of steal, only the 1) sense is valid. The 2) and 3) senses are invalid in the context of 'steal.' If 2) and 3) were valid, not only would copying be stealing, but so would vandalism. This is not the case.
Just to reiterate, take can refer to only acquisition, but in the definition of 'steal', it does not.
No, it is competition. However, the law temporarily excludes that competition. The Call of Cthulhu is in the public domain in everywhere but the US. Nosferatu is in the public domain in the US, but not elsewhere. If I distribute copies of The Call of Cthulhu and Nosferatu, one would be legal and one wouldn't depending on my locale. An act can't be stealing in some places and not stealing in others.
As for the claim of stolen goods, you should check out Dowling v. US, which held that bootleg copies are not stolen goods.
First of all, not thinking that copyright infringement is stealing doesn't mean that you think copyright infringement is okay. However, I do hold that copyright has failed to accomplish its purpose, and has been a net hindrance to the production of works, so I generally have very few qualms with copyright infringement.
Finally, a lack of legal restriction on copying doesn't mean that people have a right to possess copy. I have a collection of phone numbers and names on my cell phone. As that is a database, it is not eligible for copyright in the US. However, you do not have a right to own that database, and you won't own that database, because you do not have access to it and I will not provide you access to it.
Where is this proof? The conflict is over which sense or senses of take are appropriate, and you've not provided any evidence that just acquisition is used. Even if you do incorrectly conclude that it is still technically stealing, it does not have the same kind of harm if there is no loss, so they are not morally or ethically equivalent, and the overlap between illicit changing of possession and illicit copying is meaningless semantics.
The cause is competition. The difference here is that the copyright holder's action of creating has positive externalities. Early customers face the same kind of externalities. The people that bought hard drives 20 years ago have allowed us to buy better hard drives for less money today, but we don't feel compelled to compensate them for that benefit.
Copyright holders have distribution and reproduction costs. The high costs of establishing a distribution infrastructure were a big part of why large firms dominated many industries that have copyright. Broadband internet and other technological advances have changed things somewhat, though.
And you are also somewhat incorrect as to why we have copyright. Copyright exists at least nominally for the sake of the public benefit. The theory behind it is that by having the public sacrifice their liberties to give authors and inventors temporary monopolies, they would be more capable of making money from the endeavors and produce more creative works. Hopefully, these additional works produced would justify the public's investment of liberty.
My point was that theft was about both acquisition and loss. If you have only one of these, it is not theft. My guitar on fire example only involved loss. Also worth noting is that this my example involved things being practically the same for the victim, which is the important one to consider when you are saying something is wrong/bad/immoral. As far as I'm concerned, there isn't a huge difference between my guitar being destroyed and my guitar being stolen. However, the law and most people recognize the difference between the two even though the harm is the same. With copyright infringement, the harm is not the same, so it's in a far weaker position.
The harm is of the same type, specifically, displacement of sales and/or potential profit.
And when I torrent a movie, I have to rebuild the movie file. I have to provide bandwidth, electricity, and hardware in order to rebuild it, all at my expense. Copyright infringement is not done at the expense of copyright holders, all of the reproduction costs are carried by 'pirates' or their associates.
I see definitions that include both descriptions, such as
And I see the merriam webster legal dictionary as
Note that they refer to 'taking' without consent as larceny. If you used 'taking' in the context where only acquisition is needed, than that would mean that copyright infringement is larceny. Of course, if you use the "bunch of crap" about 'taking' that I used in the definition of 'stealing' here, then you can see it's the larceny we are all familiar with.
Identity theft is more accurately described as identity fraud, although there are forms of fraudulent identification that would not be labeled 'identity theft.'
I'll agree with that, but probably not on the terms you are thinking. Stealing includes robbery, larceny and perhaps some other subdivisions depending on the local law.
It would likely be a big improvement, but it doesn't mean that it fixes the problem. Also, doing so would almost certainly involve clearly legitimizing software patents.
If we assume that take in the definition of steal can refer to all contexts. However, I don't think that's the case. Let's say I'm playing my guitar in the park, I put it down to get a drink of water from a fountain, and when I come back, you've set my guitar on fire. I have lost my guitar. However, I would not consider it accurate to say you stole my guitar. The act you committed was vandalism or destruction of property, not theft. Here's a breakdown as I see it Loss and acquisition: theft/stealing loss only: vandalism/destruction of property acquisition only: copying
I may not be pleased with that result, but being unhappy doesn't mean it was theft. The kind of 'damage' I suffer is the same kind of effect that competition brings. You can argue that the automobile industry 'stole' the customers from buggy whip manufactures, but in that context, we consider that kind of act to be okay. In fact, we condone it so much that we prosecute parties that engage in behavior to stop competition. Now, we do have an example of digital copying that predates copyright and is still in use today: asexual reproduction. Quite a few organisms are capable of asexual reproduction. Among them is the potato. If I buy a potato, and if I cut off a piece with an eye, I can grow a potato from that. That potato will genetically identical to the potato I bought. Are you saying that when me and my family have done that in the past, we were thieves?
The definition used is to take property wrongfully, which is almost exactly what I said. The debate would be over my definition of 'take', which can refer to loss, acquisition, or both. If the reason you want to stop stealing is because stealing is bad, than the important part is what makes something bad: the harm done. The harm in stealing is in the loss part. Take for example, my guitar. If someone steals it, I will be unhappy because I don't have a guitar. If someone destroys it, I will be unhappy in more or less the same manner because I still don't have a guitar. If someone copies my guitar in a replicator and keeps the copy, I won't be bothered because I still have my guitar.
And no, it would not be reasonable to say that my friend stole my idea, at least not if intended literally. The reasonable argument would be that if I came up with an idea, and a friend of mine claims that he came up with the idea, that he stole the credit (he gained the credit and I lost the credit), although fraud may be a better description.
The meriam webster definition is to 'take the property.' That's what I said.
It's illegal taking of property, with 'taking' in this context requiring both an acquisition of property by the party labeled a 'thief' and a loss of property labeled the 'victim.' This campaign is against illegal downloading, which does not involve any loss of property. Rather, what has happened that is illegal in this situation is that a copy has been made without permission of the copyright holder. If you are a Cro-Magnon who can't comprehend copyright and copyright infringement by itself, and thus need metaphors for a crutch, it is far closer to trespassing on land than theft, as trespassing is use of land without permission, so call it trespassing instead of thief if you wish to be at least labeled a hominid, and call it illegal downloading, copyright infringement, or another technically accurate term if you wish to be classified as a modern human
What? 'Big evil corporations' often lobby for their industry, and they form organizations like the MPAA to collectively lobby and do other work on their behalf. Truth be told, a lot of the 'competitors' aren't particularly concerned with competition as much as profits.
"stealing"
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.