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this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2024
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Reproducing is not stealing. Not in the dictionary sense. Not in the legal sense. Not at all.
I don't condone selling stuff without the rights, but manipulative language like that has no place in journalism. It's pure propaganda pushed by parasitic corporations, and it undermines our collective ability to discuss and reason about the issues.
I don't understand what you're upset about. Is it word choice? What word would you have preferred?
Digital piracy is not stealing since nothing has been lost. In fact, something was duplicated. So the term stealing is not appropriate and should not be used to describe it. Copying / duplicating copyrighted material without permission is more appropriate. Also, distributing copyrighted material without permission can be used. But not stealing, no. Even stealing potential profit is a no or we were going to have to start punishing potential crime.
Technically, profit was lost.
Yes, and as I said before, if we were going to argue about lost profit then take 3D printing for example. Companies like GW don't like it when someone uses 3D printed model. The physical plastic model itself is never stolen. In fact, someone can buy it and 3D scan it themselves and then share it. Some governments are considering banning it because it can be used to manufacture guns. Why did I compare the two? Because nothing was stolen, and in fact, something was made instead. Printing money yourself is also made illegal and you never stole someone else's money.
If you recreate something that's patented and selling it you can in fact get sued and yes the same logic applies, it's profit the patent holder didn't make for something the person you sold to should have bought from them.
Hence why I said it is not stealing
Edit just for clarity. I said stealing potential profit explicitly. So you cannot sue for that, but rather sue for patent infringement.
Just because it's called patent infringement it doesn't mean it's not technically the same logic as theft that justifies it...
I'm using the word "technically" for a reason :p
Yeah, and that word also carries the heavy burden of that statement. I don't want to be pedantic but the US law states theft is the taking of another person's personal property with the intent of depriving that person the use of their property. And for patent infringement it is defined as the unlawful use, selling, or copying of a patented invention.
The laws for infringement and theft are different precisely because they come from different reasons. For theft to occur, someone must be deprived of something that they already have.
Infringement on the other hand, can be done without needing to take anything at all from the owner.
People use "technically" when they know they're not explaining themselves correctly but don't want to go into further detail and may be completely wrong.
Even that's fairly debatable. The usual case of such "massive libraries of content" is that most of it isn't even available to pay for; not provided by the content owner on any platform whatsoever (aka "vaulted") or the content owner does not make it available in the country of the person that wants to view it.
If there was more content on it than on multiple streaming platforms combined, wanna bet not all of it wasn't available?
Anyway, it doesn't matter, it would still mean a distributor didn't get paid for the content they're contracted to distribute if there's interest for it.
I understand the logic that "X isn't available otherwise so it's ok" but that's a moral view, not a legal one.
Less about right/wrong, more that there are no actual damages. If you aren't making something available for pay for and someone pirates it, you're making the exact same amount as you would if they hadn't: nothing.
It's people bitching about hypothetical money.
Again, you're assuming they had more content than multiple legit distributors and none of it was available elsewhere without proving it was the case.
Nonsense.
Nothing can be lost that wasn't had in the first place.
So wage theft isn't theft
Wage theft is the failing to pay wages or provide employee benefits owed to an employee by contract or law.". The wage is already yours to begin with. You are entitled to wage/payment for a work contract that you fulfill. The other party failing to fulfill their ends of the contract makes it theft.
"by contract or law" so just like the legal copyright owner already owns the "wage" associated with the distribution of content by law and they're entitled to a payment in exchange for the right to distribute the things they own the copyright of and a distributor failing to pay them is therefore committing theft the same way that wage theft is theft?
You do bring up an interesting point. However, the wage in question is value tied to the work that you've done. It is inherently a payment for a service not goods. You cannot really "steal/duplicate/pirate" a service. How would it work anyway?
And, the copyright owner didn't own any "wages"/profit just because you have copyrighted material. This is problematic because goods can be copied hence the need for copyright and patent law. You could get secondhand copyrighted goods and you don't owe the copyright owner anything.
Oh but you're ignoring that some people's wage is linked to the distribution of copyrighted content, not all people who work on movies or music are paid a flat rate, artists and actors often get royalties based on distribution long after the fact so people illegally distributing the content are in fact doing wage theft by offering a service (that in this case they were paid for) without paying the wage owed to the people who accomplished the work and that are bound by a contract that makes them entitled to royalties for the rest of their lives.
Royalties are not wages. It is why we have a different word for it. Would you call a gain in investment a wage? Even if people's livelihood depends on it, it doesn't make it a wage. From Cornell Law School: "Wages are payment, usually financial, that an employee receives in exchange for their labor from an employer. Wages include salaries, bonuses, tips, etc."