The ability to change features, prices, and availability of things you’ve already paid for is a powerful temptation to corporations.

  • gapbetweenus@feddit.de
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    11 months ago

    One of the great modern scams, was to convince society that unauthorized copying of data is somehow equivalent to taking away a physical object.

    • Coasting0942@reddthat.com
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      11 months ago

      Jesus didn’t ask for permission to copy bread and fish. It’s a clear moral precedent that if you can copy you should.

      What would the Jesus do?

      Checkmate Atheists!

      • AeroLemming@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        Not a lawyer, but most of what you said is true, except:

        then it’s not possible to copy that data without depriving the creator of its value.

        We’re talking about the theoretical value the creator might get if you decide to pay for something. If you never had any intention of paying to access something if you couldn’t find a pirated copy, no value has been lost by the creator due to copying the data and therefore no harm has been done. The requirement for criminal liability should be that a harm has been inflicted by you beyond any reasonable doubt. Piracy as a deprivation of monetary value can not ever meet this requirement. Of course, the actual requirement is that you have committed a crime beyond reasonable doubt, so if corrupt legislators make piracy a crime, the justice system can obviously charge you with it despite it being victimless, hence the scam.

          • gapbetweenus@feddit.de
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            11 months ago

            You seem to not understand what the word own means and the difference between material and not material goods.

              • gapbetweenus@feddit.de
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                11 months ago

                I have a thing and than someone takes it away, so I can’t use it anymore. If somebody copies that thing - it’s not really theft.

                My point is more - concepts from physical world don’t nessessary apply to digital world.

                  • TootGuitar@reddthat.com
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                    11 months ago

                    You say “ask the dictionary” — multiple dictionary definitions as well as Wikipedia say that theft requires the intent to deprive the original owner of the property in question, which obviously doesn’t apply to copyright infringement of digital works.

                    You say “ask the law” — copyright infringement is not stealing, they are literally two completely different statutes, at least in the US.

                    So, what the hell are you talking about? Copyright infringement is not theft.

                • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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                  11 months ago

                  It just seems that what you are saying is that people shouldn’t be paid if their work doesn’t create something physical.

                  • gapbetweenus@feddit.de
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                    11 months ago

                    Nope, that’s not what I’m saying. I just make a difference between copying, stealing, physical goods, digital goods and immaterial things. They are not the same.

                    Easy examples: original and copy does not really apply to digital works or two people on opposite sides of world can have the same thought but not have the same physical object at the same time, etc.

          • aylex@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            “Something you never would have dedicated as much time to if you couldn’t be compensated for it.”

            Just telling on yourself 😂

          • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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            11 months ago

            I love how you guys play these mental gymnastics to justify this shit to yourselves.

            I love how you bootlickers always deny that anyone could possibly have a principled objection to modern intellectual property laws. I don’t need to “justify” at all. I rarely even pirate anything, but I don’t believe I’m doing anything wrong when I do.

          • merc@sh.itjust.works
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            11 months ago

            Intellectual property is not a thought that you own. It’s an idea

            Ah, it’s an idea, not a thought. Gotcha. Glad you cleared that up.

            Something that actually takes time to make, often a whole lot of time.

            Who the fuck cares? Dinner also takes a great deal of time to make.

            Something you never would have dedicated as much time to if you couldn’t be compensated for it.

            That’s not true. People have been telling stories and creating art since humanity climbed down from the trees. Compensation might encourage more people to do it, but there was never a time that people weren’t creating, regardless of compensation. In addition, copyright, patents and trademarks are only one way of trying to get compensation. The Sistine chapel ceiling was painted not by an artist who was protected by copyright, but by an artist who had rich patrons who paid him to work.

            Maybe “Meg 2: The Trench” wouldn’t have been made unless Warner Brothers knew it would be protected by copyright until 2143. But… maybe it’s not actually necessary to give that level of protection to the expression of ideas for people to be motivated to make them. In addition, maybe the harms of copyright aren’t balanced by the fact that people in 2143 will finally be able to have “Meg 2: The Trench” in the public domain.

            • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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              11 months ago

              Why should an artist not be paid but a gardener or someone who build your house is supposed to be paid?

              After all, humans build stuff and make stuff with plants without compensation all the time.

              You just sound like a Boomer who thinks work is only work when the product isn’t entertaining or art.

      • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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        11 months ago

        If no one thinks that, why are you saying it right now?

        Actual theft of intellectual property would involve somehow tricking the world into thinking you hold the copyright to something that someone else owns.

      • merc@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        Intellectual property is a scam, the term was invented to convince dumb people that a government-granted monopoly on the expression of an idea is the same thing as “property”.

        You can’t “steal” intellectual property, you can only infringe on someone’s monopoly rights.

        • bane_killgrind@lemmy.ml
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          11 months ago

          Imagine if startrek was written with IP in mind. Instead of all these wunderkinds being all gung ho about implementing their warp field improvements on your reactor you’d get some ferengi shilling the latest and greatest “marketable” blech engine improvements.

          Fiction is much better without reality leeching in.

          • merc@sh.itjust.works
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            11 months ago

            Star Trek was set in a future utopia. One of the key things about the show is that it’s a post-scarcity world where even physical objects can be replicated.

            They definitely wrote the series with IP in mind… in that their view of a future utopia was one where not only did copyright etc. not exist, but nobody cared much about the ownership of physical objects either.

          • TootGuitar@reddthat.com
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            11 months ago

            For someone who bitches all over this thread about people strawmanning their position, this is a pretty fucking great reply.

            Hint: one can be pissed about people throwing around the not-based-in-legal-reality term “intellectual property.” One can be pissed about people using it as part of a strategy to purposely confuse the public into thinking that copyright infringement is the same as theft, a strategy which has apparently worked mightily well on you. One can be all of those things, and yet still feel that copyright infringement is wrong and no one should be entitled to “literally everything someone else creates.”

            What you posted was a textbook definition of a straw man.

              • TootGuitar@reddthat.com
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                11 months ago

                I don’t know how the original poster meant it, but one possible way to interpret it (which is coincidentally my opinion) is that the concept of intellectual property is a scam, but the underlying actual legal concepts are not. Meaning, the law defines protections for copyrights, trademarks, patents, and trade secrets, and each of those has their uses and are generally not “scams,” but mixing them all together and packaging them up into this thing called intellectual property (which has no actual legal basis for its existence) is the scam. Does that make sense?

                  • TootGuitar@reddthat.com
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                    11 months ago

                    Could we stop having this meta-debate about what a person who is not either of us meant, and instead could you comment on the substance of my post?

                • merc@sh.itjust.works
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                  11 months ago

                  Exactly, “intellectual property” doesn’t exist. It’s a term that was created to try to lump together various unrelated government-granted rights: trademark, copyright, patents, etc. They’re all different, and the only thing they have in common is that they’re all rights granted by the government. None of them is property though. That was just a clever term made up by a clever lobbyist to convince people to think of them as property, rather than government-granted rights related to the copying of ideas. Property is well-understood, limited government-granted rights to control the copying of ideas is less well understood. If the lobbyists can get people to think of “intellectual property” they’ve won the framing of the issue.

    • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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      11 months ago

      So you also believe people shouldn’t need a ticket for a concert, for example?

      • Cypher@aussie.zone
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        11 months ago

        The performers time is not infinitely reproducible so your argument is apples to oranges.

        • ominouslemon@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          But the time to create a novel, a videogame, or a news story is not infinitely reproducible, either. So when you are pirsting one of those things, you are actively reaping the benefits of someone’s time for free, like going to a concert without a ticket

          • Chobbes@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Yeah, this is the real issue. That said it is a shame and a waste for the results of these efforts to be artificially restricted. I do really hope that one day we can find a way to keep people fed and happy while fully utilizing the incredible technology we have for copying and redistributing data.

            • ominouslemon@lemm.ee
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              11 months ago

              I mean, we’ve kinda already found a way, and it’s ads. Now it’s obvious that the ad market as a whole is horrible (it’s manipulative, it has turned into spying, it does not work really well, it’s been controlled by just a handful of companies etc), but at least it’s democratic in that it allows broader access to culture to everyone while still paying the creators.

              Personally, I would not be against ads, if they were not tracking me. As of now, though, the situation seems fucked up and a new model is probably necessary. It’s just that, until now, every other solution is worse for creators.

          • Venia Silente@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            There’s a difference between the performer’s time to create not being infinitely reproducible, and an user’s time to use the product being or not infinitely reproducible. Whether I’m pirating or buying a TV show, the actors were already compensated for their time and use for the show; my payment for buying actually goes to the corporate fat: licensors, distributors, etc.

            Whereas when pay a ticket into a live concert, I’m actually paying for something to be made.

              • CybranM@feddit.nu
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                11 months ago

                It just magically appears /s Its disingenuous to try and justify piracy on the basis that the performers have already been paid. I don’t agree with studios either of course, customers are being scammed

              • Venia Silente@lemm.ee
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                11 months ago

                From the investors who are paying the cheques of course. They are corporations, they can afford to spend some coins on [checks notes] living wages.

                  • Venia Silente@lemm.ee
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                    11 months ago

                    And such “return” comes after the work, not before. So there’s no reason to condition the wages to do the work, on the potential that the work might be sold or not and to what amount of people. Now that would be air-quotes “stealing”!

            • ominouslemon@lemm.ee
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              11 months ago

              This only applies to cases where the artist/actor/whatever gets paid upfront. Most of the times, that does not happen. The creator of something only gets money when somebody buys what they have created (books, videogames, music, etc)

              • Venia Silente@lemm.ee
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                11 months ago

                I can get that they’d not necessarily be paid upfront, but there is no possible legal contract in which they are to be paid only in the future, in causality, according to the performance of a ~~third~ ~ fourth party who is not in the contract. What, are the actors paying their weekly groceries with IOUs?

                • ominouslemon@lemm.ee
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                  11 months ago

                  Every artist in every field get MAYBE paid a tiny bit upfront, and then a percentage of the sales. That’s how books and music work, for instance

      • gapbetweenus@feddit.de
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        11 months ago

        I don’t see anything wrong with paying for software or music or digital media. I don’t think that not doing so is theft - like I also don’t think that getting into a concert without paying is theft. By the way a concert is also not digital data, at least an irl one.

        • SCB@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          A library card is your ticket there and libraries are paid via taxes, which is why they’re free at point of use.

          Attending a free concert is not stealing. Breaking into the Eras tour is.

          • snooggums@kbin.social
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            11 months ago

            The library buys once and allows multiple people to read/watch each item without each person needing to individually purchase. Just like one person buying something and sharing it with others.

            The main point is that digitization distribution is not a concert

            • SCB@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Digital distribution is a service. You can steal a service.

              If you fuck a prostitute and then don’t pay them, you are stealing from them.

              • snooggums@kbin.social
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                11 months ago

                If the prostitute uses a technique, and then you use the same technique without paying hem for reuse, is that stealing or does their direct involvement matter?

                • sdoorex@slrpnk.net
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                  11 months ago

                  If you’re going to retype the code of a program from scratch, then your analogy is valid. If instead you are taking the production created through someone else’s labor without compensating them, then you are stealing from them.

                • SCB@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  Prostitutes don’t become prostitutes because they know secret techniques.

                  The metaphor is describing the service provided, and that not paying for said service is indeed stealing.

                  Trying to make it a different metaphor requires a new framework from you, because you copying their actual service would be you pimping them, under this metaphor.

                  • snooggums@kbin.social
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                    11 months ago

                    Someone sharing content on a peer to peer distribution network is not using the digital distribution service of whoever sold the content. They are not ‘stealing’ HBOs bandwidth to share Game of Thrones.

                    They are sharing a thing that they initially paid for from HBO at no cost to others, similar to letting your friends watch it with you on your TV at the same time. The only difference is scale.

              • psud@aussie.zone
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                11 months ago

                It’s okay I won’t use their digital distribution system to pirate their stuff.

                It’s just like falling to pay a prostitute you never fucked

        • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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          11 months ago

          Libraries get money via tax. What people here are arguing for is that others should work for them or free. Because game studios, for example, are overwhelmingly not paid via tax money. They are depending on people buying their software. And many software has ongoing costs.

      • psud@aussie.zone
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        11 months ago

        I have never had a problem with people taking a tape recorder to a concert, even if it’s against terms of service