Copyright infringement being bad in the same way as theft is the entire reason to debate this.
Right, but you consider that harm is a requirement for stealing, which it is not. Harm is CAUSED from stealing, stealing isn't a result of harm.
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.
I would never claim it would be, but you can't seem to comprehend that just because stealing can cause harm, that some kind of harm (specifically the loss of a good) is directly needed for something to be considered stolen. According to every definition I have seen this is not the case and the simple acquisition of goods without permission is enough to consider something stolen. So we can consider copying without permission stealing.
So your argument now is that this form of stealing causes no harm?
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.
I mostly agree, but I don't understand how this proves your point that harm caused from you receiving a copy illegally is different from physical theft. In both cases the company has a right to make money off of something you acquired without their permission and additionally provided no compensation to them. Wether it's through a physical means or not does not matter, since you stole something and the owner of the product was "harmed" (financially).
In trespassing on land, the wrongdoing is interference with one's legal right to exclude occupying the land.
Where do you find trespassing defined like that? It's not interfering with someones right to exclude. You are attempting to change the wording of a definition (yet again) to try to get it to agree with you. In trespassing nothing is acquired, in stealing something is. Continuing to bring up trespassing with that knowledge is just further proving my point you can't address the actual topic at hand (copyright infringement is stealing) without using an inappropriate analogy to the actual topic.
They don't have to be exactly the same, but they have virtually nothing in common other than both being illegal.
As well as stealing and a negative financial impact on the producer of the product.
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.
Yet again missing the point that it was agreed upon (in court) that stealing was committed with negative financial repercussions.
If we assume that is true, than not all stealing is bad, which makes the label of 'stealing' pretty much pointless.
This does not change the definition of stealing at all. Even if you consider it pointless.
Theft requires a very specific type of harm, which is loss of property.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
As is the case with copyright infringement. It's being misused when applied to copyright infringement, along with piracy.
No it is not. In copyright infringement you are acquiring a copy without the permission of the owner. Acquisition without permission is stealing. You have yet to disprove this.
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?
They are not the same, on what grounds do they have to be exactly the same to both be considered stealing?
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.
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.
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?
First, there is not requirement of "harm" being done for something to be considered stealing. It is simply taking something that does not belong to you. 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.
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.
I am acknowledging that a individual's beliefs are a constant despite their physical location, but that the law of the land is usually different depending on physical location. Just because you think freedom of owning a firearm is a right and are allowed that right in the United States, does not mean you will have that same right in another country. There may be a nonequivalence between physical theft and copyright infringement, but that does not mean that just because they are different they can not both cause harm or be considered stealing.
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.
These are obvious straw man arguments, created because you are unable to address the real issue of copyright infringement being stealing. Neither one of those apply since in those cases stealing is being misused. The charming man is receiving the hearts and kisses of the beautiful women with their permission, if they didn't give permission then that is definitely illegal(rape). Jimmy Hendrix did not "steal" the spotlight, he earned the spotlight based on original works of his that where more popular than his peers. Had his songs he gained the limelight form been the work of others that did not give him permission to use those works, that would have been illegal.
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.
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.
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.
The invalidation of "3" does not automatically invalidate "2". So it is perfectly reasonable that stealing could only require acquisition.
An act can't be stealing in some places and not stealing in others.
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.
From what I understand, Dowling vs US was only involving the transportation of stolen goods and those specific convictions where reversed based on laws specific only to the transportation of stolen goods. Wether or not this has any affect on how stealing and copyright infringement are related i other laws, I am not sure. It is reasonable to think that laws pertaining directly to the transportation of stolen goods would be more likely to define taking as the acquisition of a good by one party at the loss to another party.
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 do stand by initial statement that stealing doesn't require the loss of property though.
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. You provided a reference to "take" which also clearly says that the loss of something is not a requirement to have something taken. The only conflict is one you are having internally, trying to figure out how to justify stealing.
The cause is not competition, there is no competing involved. It is dealing in 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?
My point was that theft was about both acquisition and loss. If you have only one of these, it is not theft.
You are wrong about this, you've been proven wrong about this over and over yet still claim this.
The harm is of the same type, specifically, displacement of sales and/or potential profit.
Which I agree with, but the cause is different (which matters).
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 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
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
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.
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.
I will agree that simply being unhappy does not imply theft, and while the damage (financial, loss of sale) is the same as the result of competition, the cause of the damage is different.
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.
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.
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?
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.
So you agree that "take" can refer simply to acquisition?
which can refer to loss, acquisition, or both.
So it is possible to take something without the other party losing based on what you have just said.
Your observation on stealing credit rather than the idea is a good one, I suppose I should have thought more about my example. It does not address the fact that stealing doesn't always involve the loss of of property to someone else though.
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).
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that copyright protection is anywhere close to being the most important issue our government should be handling. And I don't have some kind of delusional view that pirates are on the same moral level as murderers. I do believe that piracy is stealing though
*note: they are making a copy of your guitar. Not one of your competitors, not making one of their own. They are making a copy of something that you either bought with your own money or built yourself.
I know a lot of people who are frightened of clowns, or spiders, or dogs, or women, or men, or.......
Or how bout emotional distress?? what if you post a picture with your new boyfriend/girlfriend, your ex sees that and that causes emotional distress. You could face a fine or go to jail for that?
No worries though, I'm sure this will only apply to things that frighten, intimidate or cause emotional distress to a small select group of people...
This is where your logic is flawed. The definition of stealing has nothing to do with the LOSS of property, only the acquisition of property that does not belong to you.
However, lets assume your definition is the correct one (because you are going to anyways). Is it possible to steal an idea? Lets say you where the first person ever to think of calling someone who disagrees with you a "Cro-Magnon". You tell your friend about this brilliant insult you have came up with that you can't wait to use on an internet forum. Unfortunately your friend beats you to it (because he is an idiot who can't think of original insults). It's reasonable to say your friend stole your idea. But how is that possible since you haven't lost that idea?
If you'd like to fall back on an argument of "they aren't really losing a sale", I'd love to discuss that too.
The scenario you describe is a little off since it isn't a PSA addressing something illegal like the NBC one was. Nor was the NBC one saying anything about buying NBC movies or even buying any movies at all. It was about not stealing movies. But you bring up a valid point with:
if it included the ludicrously inflated "financial damage due to piracy" statistics the media companies like to drop
I watched the PSA and aside from saying that piracy has "huge financial repercussions" they don't mention anything else about "financial damages" or throw out any useless statistics. The video is pretty corny though, they say that people lose their jobs due to piracy as well (although I'm sure record label CEOs are doing just fine). Overall I think the real issue (as others have stated) is that homeland security is involved in this at all.
I don't understand why this is such a big deal? A company that is hurt by stealing offers to make a PSA to help promote not stealing, seems like a pretty reasonable thing to happen. I especially love this quote from techdirt
Could you imagine how the press would react if, say, the FDA ran PSAs that were created and owned by McDonald's
Yeah, that would only apply if the PSA was about not stealing hamburgers, in which case I can't see how anyone could complain about that.
It's like the scientist where like "oh, sorry to hear about your breakup. You know what would make you feel better? Let me burn the shit out of your arm and study your brain. Had enough burning? Here is a picture of your ex to look at. What's that? Oh no, it only seems that she's wearing nothing but my lab coat in that picture.. your prob hallucinating form that lsd we gave you earlier."
Yes, but thats exactly my point. A user of the site isn't going to be sure what that date is either, there are context clues elsewhere in the content. But then it's reasonable to assume that an algorithm could be written to find that same association.
Thats exactly what i was thinking. It just makes more sense that search results should be based off of what is actually on the page, not what the developer whats you to think is on the page. Another problem I have are things like this (taken from the documentation on schema.org)
Is that really necessary? Is it that hard to parse that string into a valid timestamp? The only reason I can think of would be if someone wanted to use some kinda of weird way to represent a date, and if thats the case then fooey on them for displaying a date in a way a human probably couldn't read anyways.
I don't think the main issue with Tiananmen Square was that there was bloodshed but instead it was the oppression of freedom of speech, which is something that most certainly DID happen.
If you need to host external services, such as a website, pay $1k for another Mini Server
At $1,000(not including labor and electricity) wouldn't it be cheaper to just host any external services with a hosting company? Chances are they have a better backup policy, guaranteed uptime, and a better internet connection. Just my 2 cents.
If the rest of your computers are macs as well, use the space on that drobo for everyones timemachine backups(assuming no one has like 1Tb of data on their machine). Timemachine works pretty well for recovering both accidentally deleted files or restoring a machine thats had a hardware failure of some kind. If you don't want 12 machines all trying to back up data every hour all at the same time over your network, you can change how often timemachine does backups by editing the file/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto.plist. If you aren't familiar with launchd(what OSX uses to start and stop processes) then def read up on it before editing any plist files.
Normally I recommend NOT editing anything in/System, but thats where apple put the time machine preference files so I suppose in this case it's acceptable to modify that file.
Oh and some type of wiki is always a nice tool, I think OSX server comes with one, or you could just use WikiMedia.
If I think of anything else I'll be sure to post it, but as others have said, it's best to think of what your business needs rather than invent problems to fix.
I chuckle every time i read an article like this. Yes, I'm sure the United States is participating in electronic espionage (or whatever you want to call it), but does that surprise anyone? Seriously, is anyone surprised at this, like at all? As a United States citizen i would actually be very upset if my government wasn't doing this. The flip side to this is that I can really not be that upset at China for doing the same thing. So really this is a non story and the only one governments are fooling when they make claims like this are... no one.
Slashdot Mirror
freebird!!!!
Copyright infringement being bad in the same way as theft is the entire reason to debate this.
Right, but you consider that harm is a requirement for stealing, which it is not. Harm is CAUSED from stealing, stealing isn't a result of harm.
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.
I would never claim it would be, but you can't seem to comprehend that just because stealing can cause harm, that some kind of harm (specifically the loss of a good) is directly needed for something to be considered stolen. According to every definition I have seen this is not the case and the simple acquisition of goods without permission is enough to consider something stolen. So we can consider copying without permission stealing.
So your argument now is that this form of stealing causes no harm?
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.
I mostly agree, but I don't understand how this proves your point that harm caused from you receiving a copy illegally is different from physical theft. In both cases the company has a right to make money off of something you acquired without their permission and additionally provided no compensation to them. Wether it's through a physical means or not does not matter, since you stole something and the owner of the product was "harmed" (financially).
In trespassing on land, the wrongdoing is interference with one's legal right to exclude occupying the land.
Where do you find trespassing defined like that? It's not interfering with someones right to exclude. You are attempting to change the wording of a definition (yet again) to try to get it to agree with you. In trespassing nothing is acquired, in stealing something is. Continuing to bring up trespassing with that knowledge is just further proving my point you can't address the actual topic at hand (copyright infringement is stealing) without using an inappropriate analogy to the actual topic.
They don't have to be exactly the same, but they have virtually nothing in common other than both being illegal.
As well as stealing and a negative financial impact on the producer of the product.
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.
Yet again missing the point that it was agreed upon (in court) that stealing was committed with negative financial repercussions.
If we assume that is true, than not all stealing is bad, which makes the label of 'stealing' pretty much pointless.
This does not change the definition of stealing at all. Even if you consider it pointless.
Theft requires a very specific type of harm, which is loss of property.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
As is the case with copyright infringement. It's being misused when applied to copyright infringement, along with piracy.
No it is not. In copyright infringement you are acquiring a copy without the permission of the owner. Acquisition without permission is stealing. You have yet to disprove this.
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?
They are not the same, on what grounds do they have to be exactly the same to both be considered stealing?
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.
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.
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?
First, there is not requirement of "harm" being done for something to be considered stealing. It is simply taking something that does not belong to you. 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.
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.
I am acknowledging that a individual's beliefs are a constant despite their physical location, but that the law of the land is usually different depending on physical location. Just because you think freedom of owning a firearm is a right and are allowed that right in the United States, does not mean you will have that same right in another country. There may be a nonequivalence between physical theft and copyright infringement, but that does not mean that just because they are different they can not both cause harm or be considered stealing.
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.
These are obvious straw man arguments, created because you are unable to address the real issue of copyright infringement being stealing. Neither one of those apply since in those cases stealing is being misused. The charming man is receiving the hearts and kisses of the beautiful women with their permission, if they didn't give permission then that is definitely illegal(rape). Jimmy Hendrix did not "steal" the spotlight, he earned the spotlight based on original works of his that where more popular than his peers. Had his songs he gained the limelight form been the work of others that did not give him permission to use those works, that would have been illegal.
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.
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.
the RIAA p2p lawsuits results in such dispro
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.
The invalidation of "3" does not automatically invalidate "2". So it is perfectly reasonable that stealing could only require acquisition.
An act can't be stealing in some places and not stealing in others.
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.
From what I understand, Dowling vs US was only involving the transportation of stolen goods and those specific convictions where reversed based on laws specific only to the transportation of stolen goods. Wether or not this has any affect on how stealing and copyright infringement are related i other laws, I am not sure. It is reasonable to think that laws pertaining directly to the transportation of stolen goods would be more likely to define taking as the acquisition of a good by one party at the loss to another party.
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 do stand by initial statement that stealing doesn't require the loss of property though.
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. You provided a reference to "take" which also clearly says that the loss of something is not a requirement to have something taken. The only conflict is one you are having internally, trying to figure out how to justify stealing.
The cause is not competition, there is no competing involved. It is dealing in 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?
My point was that theft was about both acquisition and loss. If you have only one of these, it is not theft.
You are wrong about this, you've been proven wrong about this over and over yet still claim this.
The harm is of the same type, specifically, displacement of sales and/or potential profit.
Which I agree with, but the cause is different (which matters).
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 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
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
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.
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.
I will agree that simply being unhappy does not imply theft, and while the damage (financial, loss of sale) is the same as the result of competition, the cause of the damage is different.
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.
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.
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?
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.
So you agree that "take" can refer simply to acquisition?
which can refer to loss, acquisition, or both.
So it is possible to take something without the other party losing based on what you have just said.
Your observation on stealing credit rather than the idea is a good one, I suppose I should have thought more about my example. It does not address the fact that stealing doesn't always involve the loss of of property to someone else though.
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).
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that copyright protection is anywhere close to being the most important issue our government should be handling. And I don't have some kind of delusional view that pirates are on the same moral level as murderers. I do believe that piracy is stealing though
*note: they are making a copy of your guitar. Not one of your competitors, not making one of their own. They are making a copy of something that you either bought with your own money or built yourself.
I know a lot of people who are frightened of clowns, or spiders, or dogs, or women, or men, or.......
Or how bout emotional distress?? what if you post a picture with your new boyfriend/girlfriend, your ex sees that and that causes emotional distress. You could face a fine or go to jail for that?
No worries though, I'm sure this will only apply to things that frighten, intimidate or cause emotional distress to a small select group of people...
and a loss of property labeled the 'victim.'
This is where your logic is flawed. The definition of stealing has nothing to do with the LOSS of property, only the acquisition of property that does not belong to you.
However, lets assume your definition is the correct one (because you are going to anyways). Is it possible to steal an idea? Lets say you where the first person ever to think of calling someone who disagrees with you a "Cro-Magnon". You tell your friend about this brilliant insult you have came up with that you can't wait to use on an internet forum. Unfortunately your friend beats you to it (because he is an idiot who can't think of original insults). It's reasonable to say your friend stole your idea. But how is that possible since you haven't lost that idea?
If you'd like to fall back on an argument of "they aren't really losing a sale", I'd love to discuss that too.
The scenario you describe is a little off since it isn't a PSA addressing something illegal like the NBC one was. Nor was the NBC one saying anything about buying NBC movies or even buying any movies at all. It was about not stealing movies. But you bring up a valid point with:
if it included the ludicrously inflated "financial damage due to piracy" statistics the media companies like to drop
I watched the PSA and aside from saying that piracy has "huge financial repercussions" they don't mention anything else about "financial damages" or throw out any useless statistics. The video is pretty corny though, they say that people lose their jobs due to piracy as well (although I'm sure record label CEOs are doing just fine). Overall I think the real issue (as others have stated) is that homeland security is involved in this at all.
ok, I'll bite, what do you think it means?
Oh if I only had mod points to give you
I don't understand why this is such a big deal? A company that is hurt by stealing offers to make a PSA to help promote not stealing, seems like a pretty reasonable thing to happen. I especially love this quote from techdirt
Could you imagine how the press would react if, say, the FDA ran PSAs that were created and owned by McDonald's
Yeah, that would only apply if the PSA was about not stealing hamburgers, in which case I can't see how anyone could complain about that.
Facebook Admin 3: Hey check it out, I'm gonna reset itchythebear's notification settings again!
It's like the scientist where like "oh, sorry to hear about your breakup. You know what would make you feel better? Let me burn the shit out of your arm and study your brain. Had enough burning? Here is a picture of your ex to look at. What's that? Oh no, it only seems that she's wearing nothing but my lab coat in that picture.. your prob hallucinating form that lsd we gave you earlier."
obligatory penny-arcade? http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/4/18/
Yes, but thats exactly my point. A user of the site isn't going to be sure what that date is either, there are context clues elsewhere in the content. But then it's reasonable to assume that an algorithm could be written to find that same association.
Thats exactly what i was thinking. It just makes more sense that search results should be based off of what is actually on the page, not what the developer whats you to think is on the page. Another problem I have are things like this (taken from the documentation on schema.org)
<time itemprop="startDate" datetime="2011-05-08T19:30">May 8, 7:30pm</time>
Is that really necessary? Is it that hard to parse that string into a valid timestamp? The only reason I can think of would be if someone wanted to use some kinda of weird way to represent a date, and if thats the case then fooey on them for displaying a date in a way a human probably couldn't read anyways.
do not want!
Work for Sony!
Well, up until about a month or so ago.
I don't think the main issue with Tiananmen Square was that there was bloodshed but instead it was the oppression of freedom of speech, which is something that most certainly DID happen.
All great advice, but this puzzles me:
If you need to host external services, such as a website, pay $1k for another Mini Server
At $1,000(not including labor and electricity) wouldn't it be cheaper to just host any external services with a hosting company? Chances are they have a better backup policy, guaranteed uptime, and a better internet connection. Just my 2 cents.
If the rest of your computers are macs as well, use the space on that drobo for everyones timemachine backups(assuming no one has like 1Tb of data on their machine). Timemachine works pretty well for recovering both accidentally deleted files or restoring a machine thats had a hardware failure of some kind. If you don't want 12 machines all trying to back up data every hour all at the same time over your network, you can change how often timemachine does backups by editing the file /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto.plist. If you aren't familiar with launchd(what OSX uses to start and stop processes) then def read up on it before editing any plist files.
Normally I recommend NOT editing anything in /System, but thats where apple put the time machine preference files so I suppose in this case it's acceptable to modify that file.
Oh and some type of wiki is always a nice tool, I think OSX server comes with one, or you could just use WikiMedia.
If I think of anything else I'll be sure to post it, but as others have said, it's best to think of what your business needs rather than invent problems to fix.
I chuckle every time i read an article like this. Yes, I'm sure the United States is participating in electronic espionage (or whatever you want to call it), but does that surprise anyone? Seriously, is anyone surprised at this, like at all? As a United States citizen i would actually be very upset if my government wasn't doing this. The flip side to this is that I can really not be that upset at China for doing the same thing. So really this is a non story and the only one governments are fooling when they make claims like this are... no one.
I can also confirm this is happening to me. This is terrible, I've gotten so much work done :(